My Shaman Love
by rubyhardflames
Summary: Oyuun Batsaikhan is a young Mongolian shaman who's just moved into the area and enrolled into Sweet Amoris High. Demons and spirits may be her forte, but making friends at a new high school certainly is not. Yet when a demon is found out to be haunting a fellow student, Oyuun finds herself more and more involved in the school than she originally imagined. How will this end for her?
1. Sweet Amoris High

**Don't skip this, READ IT! It's very important! **

**=UPDATE: Merged Prologue w/ Chapter 1, Hope You Notice the Difference=**

Well, I've been playing "My Candy Love" for a while and thought that this might be a good idea, using my character and a *slightly* different storyline, incorporating that with some of the episode plots, and then throwing it all into a fanfic. Who hasn't already?

I'll tell you beforehand, though,** that this fanfic may not be what you are typically used to in Candy Love fics.** I like to use ideas not many people normally use. I am also fascinated in the traditions of ancient cultures, and Mongolia happened to be my pick here. Of course, I was thinking of making my character Mongolian in the first place when I named her Oyuun. (She's real on Candy Love, why don't you go see?)

I have also researched on the basis of Mongolian shamanism before I decided to start this fanfic. It's actually quite hard to obtain complete information on the subject, as not many people know about it and the most informative Western piece of info is in Wikipedia (and that's not much). But I luckily stumbled onto a site created by an association of shamans, and am learning more and more to be able to write this fanfiction accurately.

**Of course, there are some holes where my lack of knowledge resides and so some things in here may have been in one way or another made up to improvise for that. **Whether they are intentional for the story, like the dream world and the dream horses, or unintentional to cover up some missing links, like holding a _toli _(shaman mirror) in the hands to divinate (when multiple _toli _are sewn into a shaman robe and I've found no mention of how they are used to divinate), just know that my account of Mongolian shamanism here may not be accurate and thus, it is not _everything _about that particular shamanism (or tengerism, as some people call it.)

And in some parts of the story, I'll give the canon characters last names because if you all noticed, nothing is really said on their last names. I apologize for any confusion that might make, but it's crucial to the plot, as you'll know later.

So, that being said, I hope you all enjoy Oyuun's story. Footnotes are at the bottom, so if you see a word with an asterisk next to it, scroll down to see the footnote. If it's explained in the story then there will be no footnote for it.

Disclaimer: My Candy Love belongs to its creators and owns the canon characters.

But all OC's are mine!

* * *

**Sweet Amoris High  
**

* * *

It is a clear day, cool and sunny, with the fresh wind blowing at my back. My steps are quick and sturdy, showing the utmost confidence, but within are a swarm of butterflies tickling my stomach. My eyes seem to take everything in more perceptively than normal, and my hands are clasping the strap of my satchel for support. In one fist is a rolled up paper labeled 'Sweet Amoris High', and printed on it are words detailing the great curriculum and hospitality that the school has to offer. I have no doubts myself of the school's capability, but it is the fear...the fear of being thrust into too new an environment...that makes my heart beat so fast.

I have always been a bit afraid, suspicious even, of new crowds ever since middle school. Other kids do not seem to take well to me at first, because my hair is white and my eyes are gold, and when they hear that I'm Mongolian they taunt me and call me 'Genghis Girl'. Well, that's what it was like back at my old school. But I'm not so sure that this will be any different. I am not shy, don't get me wrong, but I know when I'm unwanted.

You are probably thinking, why is my hair white, and why are my eyes gold? You're also thinking that maybe I've dyed my hair and given myself color contacts. Because that isn't a very normal coloring for someone, isn't it? For me, however, it is an indicator of a great bloodline. To cover this up, my parents have told people that I am descended from an Oirat Mongol* ancestor and share their genetic traits. But that is not the case.

The truth is, I am descended from a very long line of certain Mongolian shamans; so long is this line, in fact, that it stretches to the times before Genghis Khan himself was born. These shamans were known in the past for their distinct coloring of white hair and golden eyes, and any baby born within the family that had such traits was immediately recognized to be brought up as a shaman in the future. This made our family distinctive and even famous throughout the tribes, because it worked faster than the typical procedure, which requires work on the current shaman's part and can take some time.

The Soviet Communism invasion some decades ago erased much of our family prominence, however, especially when they banned religion altogether and stripped every Mongolian of their family surnames and registers. Only recently in 1997 did the new Democracy call everyone to try to remember their family names or to find one to call themseves by (resulting in a lot of applications for the name 'Borijigin', Genghis Khan's clan name) and since my family had then forgotten theirs as well, we took on the name 'Batsaikhan' and once again embraced our age old traditions.

Through a twist of fate, though, some of my family ended up coming here, to this new country where I was born. Our shaman traditions have not died out and neither have they been hidden; come to my house anytime and you will see that we clearly display a _hoimor** _and beside it, my _sheree***_; but my parents do realize the implications it could have on my school life if everyone was to know that I am a shaman, so I have to keep it a secret from others. It is a far cry from the community-wide acceptance that shamans have back in Mongolia, but it's happened nonetheless.

I am a black shaman, but that doesn't make me bad. It's just a term for shamans who practice the age-old ways from before Buddhist influence, and is also used as a term to name a shaman whose mission is to overcome and suppress evil, sometimes using force. I have a cousin who is a white shaman, and as you can somewhat tell, his abilities are a little more gentle.

My abilities as a black shaman right now are quite fair, considering my circumstances. I can see the spirits and I can summon a few. If anything spiritual happens to affect someone, I know the herbs that can make a number of cures. I have a _toli _mirror which I can use to scry and divinate. When I will it, my spirit helpers will come to my aid. Most importantly...but also, most scarily...I can curse. Curses are things I don't like to use very often and very well so, because a black shaman who curses too much will lose their healing power and become an outcast.

Well, there is not much more to contemplate now that I've reached the steps of Sweet Amoris High. It is a big and impressive building and it gives off an aura of success. My family just moved to this city and along with a new house comes a new school, so that by the time that the school year was starting again we'd just finished unpacking and my mother just finished my enrollment. This was the best school around, she'd said. School for me starts tomorrow, but she insisted that I come and check it out first. Make some friends, she said. Well, that is just what I am here for, and I'm more nervous than anything.

My feet carry me up the steps, and my free hand grasps the rail to give my body balance. I finally reach the last step. Now I'm walking towards the door. It's made of glass with stainless steel framing and a metallic handle, obviously meant to be pulled. I pull it. It's heavy. I pull again with all my might and finally push myself through.

At last, I've done it...I've come to school.

* * *

Oyuun entered the building and was at once greeted by the familiar scents of books, paperwork, and classrooms that were all too typical of a school. Her hand went back to the strap of her satchel and her other was brought up to give herself a better view of the paper she was holding. _Sweet Amoris High School, _it read. _Voted the best school in the district for ten years in a row..._

There was nothing wrong about the school itself, but she wondered what everyone, even the teachers, would think of her. Her unnaturally snow white hair and golden eyes often earned her suspicious glances, and one of her teachers had even called her a "delinquent" thinking it was dyed. The truth that she could never tell, though, was that she was a shaman within a long line of shamans that had this distinctive hair and eye pigment. Her only excuse was that she was of Oirat descent, whose people tended to be fairer than their fellow Mongolians.

This time her parents decided to move and try out a new environment, although Oyuun doubted that this new city could be any different from the other one. To rub salt further on the wound, Sweet Amoris High was even more prestigious than her old school. She was lucky they'd accepted her Oirat story, which wasn't even true in the first place, and whether or not the students would be too judgmental of her was still the biggest question.

She was here to test that out, in fact. Her mother sent her out after the second day of school ended for the other Amoris students so she could get to know it better, and to even make some friends. She wondered, though, what those "friends" would think if they'd gotten a new student only a few days after starting school? For, with the sudden transfer and move, Oyuun had to wait at least two days after school had actually started before she could get in, although she had been registered beforehand. That was because her parents had to cancel her enrollment in her previous school and quickly change it to Sweet Amoris High.

The walk to the school had been relatively easy. The directions were given to her right off a map of the area, and it was surprising to find that Sweet Amoris was just right around the block from her neighborhood. A walk out to the town, going straight, make a right, and then boom; Sweet Amoris High School.

"Oh, young lady?" A voice called out, breaking her out of her thoughts and it wasn't until the voice's owner came close to her that Oyuun realized she was being spoken to.

"Ma'am?" she asked when she faced a sweet elderly lady. The lady looked very professional and wise, especially with the half-cut glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose and the dainty pearl necklace adorning her neck.

But Oyuun didn't have her spirit helpers with her to help find out who the old lady was because her parents banned the usage of spirit helpers at school. So the best she could do at the moment was to make sure her that her long hair, tied into a downward side tail, looked as neat as possible to keep this old woman from thinking she was a delinquent.

"Are you one of the new students here?" the lady asked. Her voice was soft and pleasant. "Ms. Batsaikhan, perhaps?"

Oyuun blushed. "Yes, ma'am...how did you know?"

The lady laughed briefly and gave Oyuun a smile. "I had a hunch it was you. I've met your parents and they gave me a thorough description. My, such long, lovely hair you have there! The red lace really does the trick with it."

Oyuun couldn't help but blush again and feel a bit awkward at how this old woman was actually...complimenting her hair. Did she believe the color was real? Or was she saying that thinking it was fake? Then again, Oyuun had to agree that red lace interweaving throughout her side tail was the best to work with in her white hair. It matched her outfit today too, something her mother arranged to give the school faculty the impression that Oyuun was aiming for good luck, as red was the color of luck in most Asian countries.

_Maybe I should use it more often, _Oyuun thought, thinking about what good luck the red lace actually got her.

"Oh, and I had been so rude," the old woman gushed. "I am the Principal here, Principal Shermansky. Welcome to Sweet Amoris High School! You came here early to make sure your registration was complete, right?"

Oyuun was confused. She thought her registration was already complete when her parents had met with the school officials.

Apparently, Principal Shermansky caught on to her confusion and gave her another pleasant smile. "Your mother told me that you'd be down here to do that. Perhaps she didn't tell you?" Then, as if she had just remembered something, "Oh, I'd also forgotten to detail with your parents that you'll be needing a student photo ID taken as well," she said apologetically. "Well, no matter, I will get the message down to the security office to be taken care of. In the meantime, you go check on your registration in the student council room. It's over there, to the right. You'll see the student body president there, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom you can ask about your enrollment form. Any questions?" she added sweetly.

Oyuun almost dropped her jaw at the mention of a security office in the school. What next, elevators? _But what else could you expect from so good a school? _"No, ma'am," the young shaman answered. "You've been very good to me. I'll be going now, and I'll see you again at the security office after I deal with my enrollment?"

"Right, right," Shermansky gushed. "If Nathaniel is available, he'd show you where it is. Otherwise you can ask the students that have stayed behind to do their club activities. They are more or less quartered inside various classrooms or passing by the hallways. After you take your photo, you may enjoy a little walk around the school to get better acquainted with it as much as you like. I'd suggest the courtyard, it's a nice and airy place. Well, I must go now. See you down at the security office!"

Oyuun simply waved goodbye and watched as the portly old woman waddled down the hallway. When Principal Shermansky finally disappeared around the corner, Oyuun began to make her way to the student council room. _I have no idea what mother meant by not telling me any of this, _she thought of the registration as she walked, _but I'll have to take care of it if that's the case. _

Her arm reached out for a door with the words 'STUDENT BODY COUNCIL ROOM' emblazoned conspicuously on a plaque to the side. She had stuffed the paper about Sweet Amoris into her satchel shortly after Principal Shermansky had left, so her hands were both free to open the door this time. And when it did, it revealed a neat meeting room with an oval-shaped table and padded red chairs at the center. To the back was a bulletin board, lockers, and a copier machine. A lone water dispenser stood isolated to a corner.

There was only one person in the room besides Oyuun at the moment, and that was a boy with blonde hair sifting over some papers. Oyuun couldn't help but feel that he was someone who took his work seriously, an aura given off perhaps from his wearing a necktie, blouse, and khaki dress pants. Not many kids their age would ever dress so seriously, especially to school.

Then it hit her that maybe this boy was a part of the student council. Of course, why else would a teenager dress so importantly? _Should I have knocked before I entered? _she asked herself as she stood there at the entrance, watching him doing his work. But he was so engrossed with the papers that he hadn't noticed her yet. Even when she continued watching him while tapping her feet, he still wouldn't budge.

_Ok, what am I doing? This is going to last forever. _Oyuun sighed and cleared her throat. "Ahem," she coughed.

The boy jolted. "Hmm?" he grunted, and looked up from his work. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. I was just a little busy." His brown eyes scrutinized her carefully before he continued. "You must be the new girl..._Oh-yoon Baht-sai-khan_?"

"_Baht-**seh**-khan," _Oyuun corrected him. "With a little less emphasis on the _kh_. But yes, that's me."

He looked relieved. "I heard from the principal that you'd be coming today to check on your registration. Thank goodness you made it! I was waiting here for you after school ended."

Oyuun blinked. "Really? I'm sorry, I didn't know..."

The boy smiled, a charming and charismatic smile that showed good teeth. "That's all right. It's my duty as Student Body President to work with all the students, after all."

The young shaman girl's eyes widened when she realized that _he _was Nathaniel Hawthorne. "Thank you...President."

Nathaniel laughed lightheartedly. "You don't have to call me 'President'! 'Nathaniel' is just fine. Only the other student council members call me by my official title. So don't worry."

Oyuun gave him an awkward smile, since she still wasn't sure whether it was ok to start off so chummy with him. So to change the subject, she asked, "Then, my school registration; is everything ok? I'm quite sure my parents submitted everything. I only just found out while talking with the Principal that my mom needed me to come down and check it."

"Right." Nathaniel went to a metallic cabinet file and perused through the labels. "A...B...Here, 'Batsaikhan'." He took out the said file and leafed through its papers. "Everything seems to be here, except..."

_Oh no. _"Except what?"

"Your enrollment form, which your parents sign," Nathaniel explained.

Oyuun frowned. "Are you sure? I mean, maybe it got mixed up into another file or something..."

Nathaniel shrugged. "Maybe. Well, I'll have to look into that, and that may take a while...another thing that's missing is your photo ID, which I'm sure if you've met with Principal Shermansky, she's told you about. Why don't you go and get it taken, and then meet me back here?"

_Isn't that just lucky? _Oyuun thought with an inner grumble as she thought things over. Turning to Nathaniel, she said, "All right, but can you show me where the security office is first?"

"Sure. Go down the hallway, take a left, go down that, make a right, and it should be on the second room to the left."

Oyuun nodded and ingrained the information into her mind. If only she had her spirit helpers with her, especially Baatar the Owl. He would have recorded the information and whispered it to her when she needed it. "Thank you. I'll be back soon."

With that, she turned her back on Nathaniel and went out the door. The hallway was still as empty as usual, but in the midst of the quiet Oyuun could hear muffled sounds of activity going on behind various doors. As she walked towards the direction that Nathaniel indicated, she peeked through the glass of one of the doors and saw what looked like a drama club rehearsing. _So what Shermansky said is true, _Oyuun thought. _Wou__ld I end up joining a club like that too?_

Oyuun turned from the door and continued on her way. While she had been walking, she did not notice a group of three preppy girls coming in her direction. She'd been too focused on her thoughts about her new school, and perhaps she'd thought that they'd make way for her, because she continued going straight ahead. When they didn't make any move to avoid her, she stopped to let them pass.

The head of the girls, a tall blonde with sea blue eyes, stopped as well, and so did the other two behind her. The girl on the left looked Chinese and the girl on the right was a brunette.

Oyuun thought that maybe they were being polite and stopping first, but before she could move forward the blonde girl greeted her.

"You must be the new girl?" she asked, her sea blue eyes glittering with an indiscernible emotion. "Our homeroom teacher did mention a new girl in our class this year."

Oyuun looked warily at her and the other two girls. She'd seen too much of high school cliques from her previous year to think that they meant any good. "Yes," she answered. "I'm-"

"Wow," she exclaimed rather meanly, "between this one and that other new guy, we can't exactly say we got lucky this year, can we girls?"

The other two girls laughed, and Oyuun's face turned red. "Excuse me," she mumbled, "I have to go."

"Oh no you don't!" the Chinese girl commanded. Before Oyuun could say another word or do anything else, the Chinese girl grabbed her back by the shoulder and pushed her roughly. "Were you raised in a barn? Don't you know that it's polite to say something before you leave?"

Oyuun's brows furrowed together in a frown. "It was nice meeting you," she said as politely as possible, "But I can't stay and talk. I have some other business to attend to."

The other two girls sidled behind the blonde one and gave each other conspiring glances. The blonde girl herself smirked and stepped up to Oyuun. "Look, you're new, so I'll give you some credit for being so brave." Oyuun didn't like the sound of her voice, so harsh and assertive. "But that's not going to save you in the future. The name's Amber; be sure you remember that; and whatever you do, stay away from Nathaniel Hawthorne."

_The student body president? _Oyuun thought, confused. _Why on earth...? Does she like him?_

"Got that?" Amber stared down on her to give her a glare. Oyuun was around five feet three inches, and Amber was probably three to four inches taller than her in her heels, but her stance made her seem intimidating.

Oyuun backed away a few steps and said, "It's not like I like him or anything, so you don't have to be so mean about it."

The smile that came next on Amber's lips was smug, as if she knew of a hidden joke being played that Oyuun was oblivious to. "Hmph. C'mon, Li, Charlotte, let's get going. I don't want to be wasting my time with this _thing _anymore." She flicked her long and lustrous blonde locks behind her back and started walking, an evident signal for the other two girls to leave.

Oyuun kept some distance between them to avoid any other nasty encounters, but even so Amber managed to walk by her and give her a rough bump on the shoulder. It was rough enough to have made Oyuun wince, and too rough to be an accident.

"White hair? Seriously?" Oyuun heard Li gossip to Amber as the clique walked down the hallway. "What is she thinking? She some kind of otaku?"

"She is _so _fake," Charlotte agreed. "I mean, look at her eyes, those're obviously color contacts."

"Oh come _on, _girls," Amber giggled. "What's a wannabe supposed to do? I mean, I kind of feel bad for her. If I looked like _that, _I'd dye my hair too!"

The three of them laughed wickedly together, a sound that echoed throughout the hallways and within the corner of Oyuun's mind. Just remembering it was enough to make Oyuun's face go crimson with embarrassment and rage, but she couldn't let that take away her self control. Most importantly she couldn't let herself become tempted to use her shaman abilities against them. So the second that she turned her head, she took a deep breath and continued on her way to the security office.

Once there, she met Principal Shermansky again as promised. Things seemed to go smoothly from there, though Oyuun didn't pay much attention to the process so all she could really remember was coming in and exiting with a full color photo ID in her hands. Her thoughts were still and had been lingering on Amber and her clique. _Just as I suspected, _she thought dourly, _no school is without its own judges. This __is last year all over again. What will they call me next? 'Genghis Girl'? 'Grandma'? _

It then occurred to her that Nathaniel might be no different. He may be student body president, and he may seem more considerate than those girls, but in his mind he probably thought that she was some hair-dying weirdo vying for attention by using outlandish colors. Maybe even Principal Shermansky too.

Oyuun let out a sigh and looked down at her photo ID. Her face was staring back at her with a little close-mouthed smile. Well, it looked like a fair-enough photo ID to use in the student files. Oyuun thought she had done her best with it, especially since this was her first time taking a photo ID for school. _I can't say mother was wrong in sending me here, _she thought, trying to cheer herself up. _If I hadn't__ come, my registration would have been left incomplete. I just wish she told me the truth instead of telling me to make friends. She should know by now that that's impossible._

She was just coming up to the student council room when a red-haired girl appeared from one of the club rooms and noticed her.

"Oh, hello!" she said, in a very pleasant voice.

"Hi," Oyuun greeted back.

The redhead looked her up and down. "Say, I haven't seen you before. You a new student?"

"Yes."

"What class?"

Oyuun looked at her photo ID, which had her class number imprinted on the upper right corner. "Class 2C," she answered.

"I'm in that class too!" The girl gave her a welcoming smile. "I'm Iris Trelawney, by the way. Hey, Ken! Looks like you're not alone! This is the other new student our class is getting! So, the teacher _was _telling the truth."

_Ken? _Oyuun thought that name sounded familiar.

A bespectacled boy with brown hair and a green sweater emerged at Iris' side and almost choked on his cookie when he saw Oyuun. "O-Oyuun!" he stuttered. "It's you, it really is you!"

"Ken!" Oyuun exclaimed in delight. "Kentin, you're here! Why..how..?"

"My dad transferred me to this school," Ken explained. "It's because of all the bullies back at Oakland. He said this school had a good reputation."

"But here? In this city?"

"My house isn't so far away," Ken reassured her. "I take the bus here too, so my dad doesn't have to do any work on his part. What about you, Oyuun? This is where you were moving?"

Oyuun smiled and began to tell him all the details. Kentin was a good friend from Oakland High, the previous high school were they'd spent their first year. They were in middle school together as well, but didn't really connect until high school. He was the only one who believed her when she said her hair and eyes were naturally colored. He was the only one who didn't make fun of her when she said she was Mongolian. He even thought it was cool and asked her to share some cultural information. It was only natural that she'd be devastated to leave him, the only person outside her family who understood her. She couldn't even bring herself to tell him the city she was moving in to. Who knew that he'd be there as well?

Iris looked back and forth from Oyuun to Ken. "So you two know each other," she remarked. "That must make things slide a whole lot easier for you now!"

Oyuun nodded. Ken ate another cookie.

"Well Oyuun," Iris continued, "I told Ken on his first day here that anything he couldn't get, he could come to me for. So if there's something that confuses you about Sweet Amoris, I'm all ears. Don't hesitate, ok?"

"Thank you," Oyuun said, and she truly meant it. "It was very gratifying to see the both of you. But I have to go now, because, well..." She gestured vaguely towards the photo ID in her hand.

"Don't let us stop you, then!" Iris said. "C'mon Ken, let's go back. So do you like this club?"

Ken rubbed his chin in thought. "I don't know," he said. "Could we see another one?"

"Sure, let's just see them finish..."

The door closed on the room and Oyuun was left alone for the third or fourth time that day. But she was practically skipping to the student council room now that her spirits had risen after she'd found out Ken was coming here too, and discovered a new friend in Iris. She betrayed herself a little, secretive smile as a hint of how she was feeling.

That smile was still on her lips, in fact, when she entered the student council room and gave Nathaniel her photo ID.

"That's good, very good," Nathaniel remarked as he stuffed it into the 'Batsaikhan' file.

Oyuun stood there quietly waiting for him to finish, and when he did she asked him, "So how did my enrollment form go? Did you find it?"

Nathaniel's face instantly fell. "About that, well...you see..."

Oyuun didn't like the look on his face or the tone of his voice. "What?"

"I'm sorry, but it looks like your registration couldn't be completed."

Her face turned pale and she nearly stumbled backwards. She had to put on a hand to her satchel to give herself the feeling of support. "So this means I can't be enrolled? I can't go to school? What am I supposed to do, then?"

It was then that Nathaniel burst out laughing. Oyuun was so taken aback by his show of mirth in such a grim moment that it was only his respectable position that kept her from exploding at him. But when it appeared that he wouldn't stop, she began to grow impatient.

"What's so funny?" she demanded.

"You should've seen the look on your face," Nathaniel said as he was finishing his laughing.

"So that was all a joke?" Oyuun asked disbelievingly. "Right from the very beginning?"

"Not from the beginning, no," he explained. "I'd actually found your form mixed up in another file, so everything's ok. I just wanted to throw in some humor for you since you're a new student and everything."

"That was not funny!" Oyuun immediately chided him. Her words started getting faster and more panicked. "You almost gave me a heart attack back there! Ever since we moved here my parents have been talking about what a good school this is and how I'd have a better opportunity here! If I'd come home and told them I wasn't able to be enrolled, they'd never let me hear the end of it, even if I wasn't the one who took care of the paperwork! They'd think it was because of my hair or my eyes again, which was the core reason I got rejected by two or three 'prestigious' schools already, and, and..."

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy," Nathaniel coaxed her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I just wanted to have fun. But I've probably been too wrapped-up in paperwork that I've forgotten what the limits were. This is completely my fault. And you don't have to worry about your hair; there are some students here who dye theirs too."

Oyuun stared at him, her feelings jabbed by insult. "Not you too," she mumbled.

"I'm sorry?" Nathaniel looked confused, as if he hadn't heard her correctly.

"Nothing. It's nothing. My hair is real. But no one really believes in an Oirat Mongol, that's all."

"What? Wait!"

Oyuun didn't bother waiting to hear his explanation. She simply turned on her heels, ignored his pleas, and stormed out of the room. She didn't look back as she rushed down the hallway, where waves upon waves of disappointment washed over her body. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore and had to stop in the middle with a hand on the wall to support herself. She was growing dizzy with all these emotions and wondered just how many times was it possible to have one's hopes crushed in a day.

First, Principal Shermansky treats her like a part of the family; but then Amber and her girls ruin it all for her and make it clear she wouldn't be accepted as long as they are around. Seeing Ken again and exchanging friendly words with Iris made her feel better; but when she saw Nathaniel, the student body _president_, he not only managed to trick her but showed his open opinion of what he thought her hair color was really like. Fake.

_Amber's friends are right to some point, _she thought sadly. _I am fake. My Oirat story is fake. The fact that I am a shaman and can't tell anyone about it makes me so fake. I'm so embarrassed. Can I really share the Mongolian race that Genghis Khan came from?_

What she had really wanted to say was Nathaniel was, "But no one really believes in my family of Mongolian shamans." Who was she to speak, though?

_I have to go cool my head, _she decided. _Principal Shermansky said that there was a courtyard here...Where's the door to that? Ah, there it is._

She was just reaching the school's courtyard entrance and roughly opened the doors when she barreled herself right into the back of a boy who'd been standing there.

"Sorry," she apologized curtly, and ran past him.

"What kind of 'sorry' was that?" he yelled after her. But she didn't care. She just kept going. When a hand reached out for her shoulder, Oyuun assumed that it was just the boy she'd bumped into and that he was angry. But it wasn't. When she turned around, it was Ken.

"Oyuun?" he asked. "Are you ok? You seemed upset..."

"I'm fine, Ken," she said, her voice still shaking with emotion.

Ken frowned. "You don't look 'fine'," he insisted. "Come here with me. Let's sit on a bench and have some cookies together."

But before Oyuun would agree, she asked him, "How did you catch up with me?"

"Oh, I was just leaving the gardening club with Iris; it's right down there; when I saw you run out of the school. You seemed upset, so I followed you."

"You didn't just leave Iris there?"

"Nah, she totally understood. Come one, let's eat those cookies now."

But they were interrupted as the same boy Oyuun had bumped into came storming over to them, his face twisted in outrage.

"Oh no, it's Castiel!" Ken whimpered.

Oyuun didn't like the fear in Ken's voice. "Who is he? Did he bully you?"

"No...he just doesn't like to be crossed. I saw him giving the evil eye to some guy who'd accidentally spilled juice on his desk. And I've heard that he's beat up a few kids in the past...and yes, he's in our class."

Oyuun wasn't sure whether she should be afraid of someone Ken only saw giving the 'evil eye', but she knew from the look on Castiel's face that he was prepared to do more than just that.

"Hey you, with the white hair," Castiel called out roughly. "You think that's the proper way to apologize when you bump into somebody? You're pretty rude, aren't you?"

Ken started shivering and whimpering, but Oyuun stepped forward and met Castiel's angry gray eyes.

"What did you do to make him angry, Oyuun?" Ken asked shakily.

"It's just like he said, I bumped into him," she explained. Turning to Castiel, she said, "Um, I'm sorry for bumping into you. I was just in a rush."

"In a rush? In a rush? At least give someone some warning when you're 'in a rush'!"

"Apologize already, Oyuun!" Ken urged her.

"I already did!" she argued.

Castiel watched them for a moment before saying, "Oyuun? That sounds like the name of the new girl who's supposed to be in our class. You're her?"

Oyuun nodded. "Yes...any more problems?"

"Hmph." He grunted. "The teachers all talk about you, that's what. 'Specially in history. They say you'll bring a lot of variety to the class or something."

"I can take a guess or two why they say that," she said with a shrug. "Well, it was nice meeting you and all." Knowing how the conversation would drag on if she stayed, and not wanting any more drama, she rolled up her sleeve to take a look at the time. "Oh no, I have to get home right now! My mom is expecting me to cook dinner today. Ok, see you tomorrow."

"Wait, Oyuuuun!" Ken wailed. "Don't leave me here with him!"

"What's the matter?" Iris asked as she was jogging up the path.

"No one's forcing you to stay," Oyuun pointed out. "And don't worry, Iris will be with you." With that she went for the door and entered the school again. Without another word, she adjusted her satchel's strap and headed out for the front door.

_Sweet Amoris High School, _she thought as she walked past the school building's sign. _What have I gotten myself into?_

* * *

**Footnotes**

*_...descended from an Oirat Mongol..._ Oirat Mongols are a group of people who tend to have fairer hair and different colored eyes; for example, blonde hair and blue eyes or red hair and green eyes, and sometimes Caucasian features. Legend has even said that Genghis Khan was redhaired and greeneyed. This strange occurence may be from an ancient mixture of bloodlines long ago.

**_hoimor..._Most Mongolian homes that still believe the old way will have a hoimor, or sacred place, within the house. It is like a Buddhist altar but smaller and with obviously more Mongolian artwork. The hoimor usually has candles placed upon it with pictures (usually of Genghis Khan) and offerings of food or drink along with other things considered important by the family. They are to be placed away from doors and general "traffic" in a modern house. But in a traditional tent, they are to be facing the north side of the house, and this is easy since the opening of the tent always looks out south.

***_sheree..._If a shaman is a part of the family, then they usually keep their equipment on the hoimor or beside it in a separate trunk called the sheree.


	2. Nothing is As it Seems

And the winner is...Spark Firebug! Whoopee!

Yes, that is true, Nathaniel Hawthorne was a famous author who had a Salem witch trial ancestor he was ashamed of and whose stories are often allegories referring to moral wrongs and so forth (perhaps based off his family's involvement in the Salem witch trials). My favorite is Rappaccini's Daughter; it's just so sweet and tragic. But he's better known for "The Scarlet Letter."

Also, you may notice here that I've created the Abjiya Oyugun to replace the Candy's fanatical aunt in this story. I wanted someone like a matronly figure for Oyuun to stand by her side, and what better way than one of the spirits of her ancestors? Plus I didn't really like the concept of a love obsessed "Fairy Godmother" so I made her a century-old shamaness instead.

And just so you all don't get confused, there will be a word indicated by a + sign that should also signify some footnotes. That's because the asterisk limit is three asterisks and afterwards different signs have to be used. Later, when there are too many foreign words/concepts to be indicated with markers, I will list the phrase or word and have a definition beside it. So you'll have to read the chapter not knowing what those words are until you finish it. This wouldn't be happening if allowed for a more flexible formatting. But oh well.

**I changed some of the ending because it wasn't good enough. Hope you like it better! Also, turns out I got the Mongolian word for 'demon' wrong the entire time. It's actually "shulam", not "buninka". Buninka is the name of a certain demon. Well, I fixed it, and I'm sorry for any misunderstandings it may have caused.  
**

All right, get ready for chapter two (and some footnotes)!

* * *

**Nothing is As it Seems  
**

* * *

Sometimes when I go to sleep, my _ami, suns, _and _udha* _souls exit my body and travel to a spiritual land. It is known as the Dream World, and it is there that I take my shaman lessons. After all, I didn't become educated in the shaman ways without a teacher. However, it is a more new and maybe even 'modern' way for me to learn my arts. Traditionally, a shaman would be taught by an elderly shaman and their spirit helpers. But because I have no elderly shaman with me, I must learn through the Dream World.**  
**

The Dream World is shaped after the long and endless windswept plains of Mongolia. Barely any tree breaks through the smoothness of the land and the long green grasses are always bowing down to the wind. The sky is clear with scattered clouds and the sun shines brightly with her warmth**. Sometimes the weather fluctuates and the landscape becomes wintery. Everything is real, and yet unreal. When I come there, my senses interact with the world so vividly it is as if I really were in the Dream World. But when I leave, I wake up on my bed and it is nothing but a 'dream'. However, I remember every detail, because it was so real.

When I enter, I don't enter the way I was dressed going to bed. It would be rude to show up for lessons wearing your pajamas, after all. I enter in my traditional Mongolian clothes. The most basic and fundamental part is the _deel, _which is like the dress. Men wear it too, so I should probably call it something of a robe. It has long sleeves and a close-fitting collar with a wide sash, making it suited for protection against the wind, yet flexible enough to offer freedom for horseback riding. When it is too cold, there is a winter coat that covers my _deel _and keeps me even warmer. I also wear some trousers underneath the _deel _to keep my legs warm, and those are tucked into my _gutul, _or Mongolian horse riding boots.

On top of my head, there is always a _louz, _or a hat. It is round at the top and has thick fur trimming at the edges. Depending on the temperature, the edge could be raised or lowered. And if there is a special occasion, like the coming of my five cousins who are also shamans, the hat is decorated with long tassels of beads framing both sides of my face and my _deel _and coat are more colorful and formal to match with it. But the _gutul _must always stay on.

Whatever I wear, though, I am always readily mounted on my Dream Horse. This is the horse that carries me through the Dream World and acts like another spirit helper to protect me from any dangers. Shamans always have a horse in this world and in turn they cannot ride the horse of another shaman. The horses will only accept their one shaman master and rider. My horse is Qulan, a splendid and sleek blue roan.

I believe I have mentioned that when my five cousins come, I enter the Dream World dressed more fancily. Well, if you've paid attention, my five cousins are also shamans and also have teachers and horses in the Dream World. We can see each other through this world at night even if we are physically far apart. In fact, if one of them were to go to Mongolia on a plane, he could still come see me by riding his horse through the Dream World. So far the Dream World has only been shared between us shamans, and is something of a shaman secret.

But silly me, I've been going on and on about taking shaman lessons when I haven't even mentioned a teacher. As I have said, traditionally the teacher of a shaman is an elderly shaman and the spirit helpers. But here in the Dream World, my teacher is my ancestral Protector Spirit; you could say she plays the role of the elderly shaman; my great, great, great, great, many more greats, grandmother, Oyugun. She was a very accomplished black shaman in her time and so was given the title, 'Abjiya', which means Great Shaman Priestess. Her spirit usually resides within my shaman drum, which was hers in the past. But when I need her near me in public places and a drum is too inconvenient to carry, I have a spirit talisman necklace that I can wear which she can follow.

Abjiya has white hair and golden eyes, just like me. She appears young in the Dream World and is always dressed in her shaman robes, which never change no matter what the weather. Her horse is a dark bay with no name, because traditionally horses aren't supposed to have names. I gave mine one because, just like those of you who have pets, I can't stand owning an animal and not naming it.

Well, tonight I am seeing her, as I can feel from the distant breathing of the Dream World's wind, though there is no fan or air conditioner on in my room. My thoughts grow hazy as my mind plummets into deep sleep, and eventually, they turn into dream...

* * *

"...and that is how you can use a spell chant to curse," the Abjiya Oyugun said as she finished demonstrating the curse to her student, Oyuun, who was more busy in staring out into space than listening.

"Oyuun?" Abjiya asked. "Oyuun? Hello, Oyuun? Are you paying attention?"

"Huh?" Oyuun broke out of her thoughts and looked at her teacher. "Oh, Abjiya, sorry, I was a little distracted."

The Abjiya did not seem pleased, but she wasn't angry either. "Well Oyuun, we cannot continue in our lessons if you can't pay attention. You might as well tell me what's on your mind right now. Hopefully that will make your head a little clearer." She turned her horse's head so that it was facing Qulan and Oyuun, the jingle cones and _ongon*** _on her robe clanking softly as she moved.

Oyuun felt a bit awkward about explaining her school problems to the Abjiya. But they had been able to discuss many things before, even Ken, so there shouldn't have been any problem confiding in her. Not only was she the Abjiya and teacher, but she was also the loving great, great, great, many times great, grandmother, making her a part of the family.

_I suppose I can tell her, _Oyuun thought. _She's always ready to listen to me when it looks like I have problems. At least I have someone like that. _"Well," Oyuun started, "today I came to my new school to check it out and make friends, like Mother said."

"Yes, I was aware of that."

"I did have a good time, because Ken turned out to be there and a really nice girl named Iris welcomed me cordially." The young shaman gave a sigh before contuing. "But I also had a run-in with some mean girls who didn't like me very much. And...I can't help but feel this, but..."

The Abjiya raised an eyebrow. "What is it, child?"

Oyuun's golden eyes were uncertain and clouded with doubt. "I don't know, I just have a feeling that there's something ugly waiting for me there. It may have something to do with them. I didn't notice before but now that I think about it, I sensed a malicious intent coming from those girls unlike the other mean girls at my previous school."

"Hmm." Abjiya's face grew serious and she stared down at her horse's ears for a while, lost in thought. Then her golden eyes came up to meet Oyuun's and her face was set with a sort of resolution. "There are many ways to interpret this. To take it at face value, then these girls are doing it simply because they're mean. To delve deeper, they are insecure and are trying to make themselves feel better by acting superior. But to disbelieve it all together..."

"What?" Oyuun exclaimed, and she put a hand to her mouth when she realized how rude that sounded. "I'm sorry, Abjiya, but what do you mean by 'disbelieve it'?"

"Simply don't believe in anything they do or say. I mean, why would you? If you believe it, then you take it personally."

"But they really meant to make me feel unwanted!" Oyuun protested.

"Just like the student body president really meant to hurt your feelings with his joke and unknowing remark," the Abjiya pointed out a little sarcastically.

Oyuun's face turned bright red. "Well, ok, he might have not known," she admitted. "But then how does that apply to those girls? If they didn't mean to do all that to me, why would they do it?"

"If you choose not to believe them," Abjiya said, "you give yourself a distance from what they try to call you or make you out to be. For example, I say you're a bird. But you don't believe me, because you're not a bird. But if you took it personally, then in some way or another you must be a bird; at least, that's how it will seem to observers from the outside."

"So if they called me fake," she said, "and I reacted badly, that would only prove them further?"

"Why, yes," Abjiya said with a smile. "You wouldn't be bothered if you weren't fake, right? So don't listen or believe in them. That's all there is to it."

"Thank you, Abjiya," Oyuun said with a smile, though she still had her doubts.

The Abjiya smiled back. "That's good now that you feel better," she remarked. "Now, our time is almost ending. I want to review the lesson before you leave. What have I been teaching you so far?"

Oyuun blushed red again. "Um, well, " she stuttered. "You were saying something about spell chants...to, uh..."

Abjiya gave out a sigh of exasperation and turned her horse to face the wind. "To curse, young one. Woe to me if you come here with your personal troubles, especially when I'm teaching you curses! Ah, well. What's happened has happened. Come, let's go to my yurt+ for some _airag_, fermented mare's milk, before you leave."

Oyuun nodded in obedience and set Qulan in a canter after the Abjiya. When the Abjiya's bay began to gallop, so did Qulan, and the two horses carried their shaman masters over the great plains as if the wind itself were blowing them across. So fast were they going, that Oyuun's hair whipped back and her side tail became untied. She caught the lace midflight and carried it in her fist all the while enjoying the ride on Qulan.

Then, atop a mid-sized hill, came the welcoming sight of the circular dome-topped yurt the Abjiya was talking about. Once they reached it, teacher and student dismounted their steeds and tied them to some stakes nearby. The Abjiya entered first and Oyuun entered second. Abjiya then prepared a mat for Oyuun to sit on and took out two wooden bowls already filled with _airag_. Together, they took a sip, but Oyuun had downed hers within the moment.

The taste that airag always left on the tongue was slightly sour, yet fortifying. Oyuun had grown used to it, in part because the Abjiya had gotten her to drink it during their very first meeting when she was four. It was much harder to acquire any _airag _physically in places besides nomadic central Asia, so Oyuun had never experienced it in the real world. But she did hear from her white shaman cousin that when he'd visited Mongolia, he drank it for real, and that it was no different from what their ancestral Protector Spirits gave them.

Drinking _airag _in the Dream World did not only hold traditional and customary purposes but it also strengthened the _ami, suns, _and _udha _souls of a shaman for their journey back to their body and _suld _soul. Which was why Oyuun had drained her bowl within the first few minutes of acquiring it; the Abjiya was no longer living, so she would not necessarily need it as much, but Oyuun's three free souls would need it as much as a malnourished man needed his vitamins. That was why at the end of every lesson, Oyuun and the Abjiya would share bowls of _airag_; so Oyuun's souls would be satisfied and given more power.

Abjiya smiled and reached out to recieve the empty bowl that Oyuun handed back. "Nice to see your _airag _appetite still as strong as ever. That is good. If only you'd direct that energy more towards curses. I know black shamans who curse too much are bad but a black shaman that curses too little is just as bad."

Oyuun frowned at the Abjiya's remark. "But why should I curse more? I don't really have anyone I want to curse. Not even those mean girls at school."

"There will be some demons you will deal with that you cannot simply drive away with spell chants and burning herbs, or even the assistance of a powerful spirit helper. Curses will aid you, and frankly they are required to be used on people as much as bad spirits."

There was logic in the older shaman's words, but Oyuun still felt uneasy about it. "I would be more comfortable being able to bless more, like a white shaman."

"But the spirits have ordained that you should be a black shaman. You can't argue with them."

"I know, I know," Oyuun sighed. But she could feel her time in the Dream World nearing to a close, so she and the Abjiya stood up to say goodbye to each other. "Thank you, Abjiya, for tonight's lesson. I'm sorry I didn't pay attention and I promise to do so next time."

"And may the spirits be on your side," the Abjiya finished, putting a hand on the young girl's forehead to ruffle her white hair. That was her own personal touch, something made up to make her less of a formidable and unapproachable shaman and more of a loving and caring ancestral grandmother. "Oh, and Oyuun, before you go; wear your talisman necklace to school tomorrow. I want to see what it's like for myself this time."

"Yes, Abjiya." Oyuun smiled and headed out the tent. She untied Qulan, mounted him, and rode off across the plains to the Point of Return. When a shaman's time in the Dream World would end, they would ride out on their Dream Horses to the Point of Return, a center of concentrated shamanic power that would send their three wandering souls back to the body. Oyuun was well trained enough by the Abjiya that she no longer needed the Protector Spirit to guide her there; she could instinctively sense it in her own mind, a great step towards becoming a fulfilled shaman.

It came closer, and closer, and closer, with every thundering hoofbeat. Oyuun closed her eyes and let the tangles of shamanic power envolope her. At the climax, she rode Qulan harder and faster towards the Point. And then...

Everything turned dark and the only thing she was aware of was a light, floating sensation. Within minutes a light at the end of the darkness opened up and Oyuun could feel herself being dragged towards it. Soon enough, her souls began to rest peacefully back into her body, and along with it the memories of that night's lesson. When she was fully aware of herself again, her golden eyes opened up and caught sight of the sunlight streaming in from outside her window.

* * *

Oyuun walked leisurely on the sidewalk that would lead to Sweet Amoris High. Her backpack was slung over her shoulder, her hair neatly tied in the same customary downward side tail with the lace weaving in and out, and her talisman necklace was hanging from her neck. The actual talisman dangling from the string of rust colored beads rested obviously against the front of her shirt and bounced along to her movement. There was no hiding this necklace if one wanted actual protection. So whatever was going to be said about it, Oyuun was prepared for. The Abjiya's orders were more important anyway.

When Oyuun reached the school, the door was wide open and only a few students were making their way inside now. But as she got closer, she noticed a great sound of laughter coming from inside. _What's so funny? _she wondered as she came up the steps. At the same time, the talisman on her neck was tingling with a cautious aura.

_Abjiya doesn't like the laugher, _Oyuun thought worriedly. _Something is wrong with it. What could it be?_

She had only crossed the threshold of the school when she was accosted by Amber, Li, and Charlotte.

"Well hello there, Oyuun," Amber said in a mock-friendly voice.

"Hello, Amber," Oyuun greeted hesitantly.

"We were just talking about you," Amber explained, and she flashed a wicked smile. "We saw your heroic actions yesterday."

"Heroic actions?" Oyuun blinked in confusion.

Li put a hand over her heart and pretended to look moved. "Oh, it was so dramatic! I could've cried, if it weren't for..." She trailed off mysteriously and looked to Amber.

"Oh Oyuun, so clueless," Amber continued. "Don't pretend like you didn't know it. You defended your helpless boyfriend Ken from the big bad Castiel...remember?"

_WHAT!? _Oyuun was so shocked that the talisman had to send an aura of discipline her way in order to keep her in check. "Wait, what? You have it all wrong, Ken's not my boyfriend. And Castiel, well, I was the one who angered him..."

"That's just pathetic," Charlotte commented. "What kind of boyfriend doesn't stand up for his girlfriend? Girls, don't you remember Ken hiding behind her the whole time?"

Amber giggled. "Silly us, so it was just him being a coward in the face of danger to the one he loved! Thanks Oyuun, for clearing that up."

"But I'm not his girlfriend," Oyuun repeated angrily. "He's just a friend."

"Come on now, don't be upset about it. That's a great improvement for someone like you. Isn't that right, Li, Charlotte?"

The other two girls laughed in Oyuun's face, making her go back a step.

"Oh, right, before I forget." Amber dug through her purse for a moment and took out a sheet of paper. "We girls have a present for you to welcome you to the school. Here."

Oyuun took the paper that was roughly shoved into her hands and turned it over so that she could see what was on the other side. It took her a moment to realize that Amber had just given her the photo ID she took the previous day, but...

...her portrait was given a mustache, and insulting words were written all over the picture.

_Oirat? **A **rat!_

_Watch out guyz, she gonna invade this school like Genghis Khan!_

_Oh-you "Butt"-saikhan!_

_Colored contact eyes, dyed hair; what next, a nosejob?_

_Faker!_

_FAKE!_

"How did you get this?" the shaman snapped at Amber while gripping the paper harder and harder. "And how dare you...?" _They're so mean! _In a flash of anger, Oyuun crumpled the ruined ID and ripped it up, uncaring of whether or not she'd need to take a new one.

Amber simply laughed at her as though she were a child that didn't know anything. "Oh no, looks like you just busted your only ID! But wait; lucky for you we've got copies...lots and LOTS of copies!"

The three girls proceeded to take some papers out of their purses and shower Oyuun with photocopied photo IDs that were identical to the one she had just held. The same words were written on every single one, but in a few the mustaches had different outlandish shapes. Then as Oyuun stood in the midst of all the littered paper, Amber smirked and gave out one last remark before leaving.

"By the way, we've made a hall of fame for you! Now you're famous throughout the whole school!"

_No..._Oyuun looked up and true to their word, they had plastered the copies all over both walls in the hallway. Whether tilted or straight, countless smiling Oyuuns stared out into the building with a ridiculous mustache and offending insults written all over. At the same time, Oyuun discovered the source of the laughter; everyone present, junior to senior students alike, were pointing at her picture and guffawing their faces off.

Oyuun felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. The talisman on her chest radiated pure rage and comfort at the same time. She stepped away from the pile of paper with shaky legs and stared at it in horror, as if it were some demonic abomination.

Things only got worse when the laughing students identified her. "Hey, it's Butt-saikhan!" a rude guy shouted.

"Isn't she that dorky Kentin's girlfriend?"

"Wow, she really is a faker!"

Oyuun shut the noise out from her mind and started to think. Amber's clique couldn't have gotten ahold of her ID unless they'd snooped through the file cabinet in the student council room. But there was no way they could pull it off without getting caught by Nathaniel that day; he'd stayed in the room even after Oyuun stormed off on him. Which could only mean...

Her suspicion felt confirmed when her golden eyes rested upon Nathaniel's distraught form in the midst of the humorous chaos. _It was him, _she decided right then and there. The talisman, however, did not seem to agree with her. But she didn't care at the moment. All she could think of was how Nathaniel had had a hand in playing this prank on her too.

"Everyone, quiet! Please!" the student body president pleaded. But no one wanted to listen. "Stop this nonsense if you don't want a suspension!"

The laughing did die down, and the students were able to file themselves to their classrooms and away from the decorated hallway; but that didn't stop them from looking back and leering at Oyuun with mocking eyes.

This left Nathaniel and Oyuun alone together in the hallway. While Nathaniel was moving to take the pictures down, Oyuun stood rooted to the spot, her golden eyes glaring at him as he moved.

After Nathaniel put the first load of pictures in the trash, instead of continuing he hurriedly went over to Oyuun, his face flushed and sweating with anxiety and embarrassment. "Oyuun, oh my god, I'm _so _sorry about this. I had no idea that these students-"

She gave him no time to speak as she slapped him full across the cheek.

Nathaniel was so taken aback that he stumbled a few steps backward and put a hand to his stinging cheek. "Oyuun?" His voice was incredulous.

"Be quiet!" she commanded. "Only you could've gotten to that photo ID!"

"What!? Oyuun, please don't misunderstand-"

"That was horrible and childish," Oyuun accused him. "And helping Amber especially; what, are you two dating or something? Is that why you gave her my ID?"

Nathaniel's face was twisted in horror. "What are you saying? Amber's my sister, and I would _never _help her do anything like this! She must've photocopied it when she visited me after you left. I didn't know anything, my back was turned the entire time! Trust me!"

Oyuun roughly wiped at her face so that he couldn't see the tears rimming her eyes. "Trust you? After this? Never!" She turned away from him and angrily made her way to her classroom, but at the same time, stopping along the way to rip down the papers. _I hate this school, I hate this school, I HATE THIS SCHOOL! _She got ahold of one paper and tore it, stomped on it, smashed it, crumpled it, threw it; and then sank down to cry her angry tears.

_The girls back at my other school never did anything like this! _she remembered. _They called me names, they taunted me and Ken, but that was all! Why...? Why!? What did I do to Amber that made her so angry?_

Two fingers tapped lightly on her shoulder, and Oyuun was prepared to swat them away. But when she looked up through her misty eyes, she saw that it was Iris holding out a hand for her.

"That was Amber and her girls, wasn't it?" the redhead asked softly.

Oyuun looked down on the floor and ignored Iris' hand. "Yes," she affirmed shakily. "It was."

Iris sighed and bent down beside her to rub her back comfortingly. "That was a horrible prank indeed," she said. "But class starts soon. Let me take you to the bathroom so you can wash your face, ok?"

Oyuun nodded wordlessly and allowed Iris to lead the way. Once inside, the distraught shaman turned the water on to ice cold and splashed her face with lots of it. Eventually Iris had to stop her before she completely soaked her head.

"You look much better now," Iris commented helpfully while keeping the other girl's hand from reaching for more water. "That's enough, so let's go, ok?"

The way to the classroom was blurred as Oyuun was being led by Iris again, her face listless and numb. The only show of activity from her was a little shoulder shrug to keep her backpack from sliding off. As Iris opened the door for her, Oyuun was greeted with the sight of seated high schoolers who were all busy talking to each other and stopped when she entered.

"It's Butt-saikhan. Yeah, it's her." She could hear whispered acknowledgements like that being spread all over the classroom like a wildfire.

Iris heard them, too. "Come on guys, that's just plain mean! Are you really going to follow Amber and her cronies and mock her like that?"

Amber unfortuantely was in the classroom as well, and she put on a totally smug face. "Iris, always the goody-goody two shoes. Can't you tell a joke when you see one?" The teacher wasn't there yet, making Amber feel free to say what she wanted. "It was a funny one, too."

Li giggled along with Amber's remark. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen; _she must be in another class, _Oyuun thought. _Thank goodness. The three of them united is worse than a horde of hungry bears._

Ken sat somewhere to the corner, looking pitiful yet sympathetic. Oyuun guessed that he'd been bullied too, especially with the rumor that she and him were dating. Her eyes panned over the rest of the classroom to take a look at whoever else was in their class. A shy girl with wavy brown hair, another brownhaired one with dyed pink tips, a scowly dark-skinned girl with a scarf, a gentle boy with green hair...

_Where's Castiel? _she suddenly wondered. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen. _What made me think of him? _

"Forget them, Oyuun," Iris said indignantly. "Let's sit. Here, you can sit next to me and in front of Ken."

At this, there was some teasing about Oyuun and Ken again. But, like the Abjiya had said, she ignored them and refused to believe in them. If only she could have done that earlier with Amber...maybe then she wouldn't feel so bad.

When they sat down, Ken whispered a little 'psst'. "Oyuun, Oyuun," he said. "Are you all right? Would you like a cookie?"

Oyuun declined with a wave of her hand. "I'm fine. I think I'll pass."

"Ok." Ken took a cookie and ate one. "Well, that was the last one, so I can't offer you any more today."

"That's fine."

Iris looked stricken to hear them talking in such sad and empty tones. "Look, guys, don't let Amber's pranks get to you. She's just an average meanie, that's all. There are worse out there."

Oyuun took out a notebook and began doodling. "Thanks, Iris, I'm trying my best to do that." Then, as if she remembered something, the shaman girl whirled around to look from Ken to Iris. "Wait a second. Does that mean Ken was bullied by her too?"

Iris nodded grimly. "Her and her cronies took his lunch money before you came today. Then they pushed him to the ground."

Oyuun took in a sharp breath. She cursed in Mongolian to be safe.

Iris ignored the Mongolian cussing. "I know. It's even worse that they decided to make fun of you as a couple, even though you're friends."

"Actually..." Ken spoke up, and his voice trailed off nervously.

"What is it, Ken?" Oyuun asked.

Iris leaned in to listen.

"Um, about that thing, of us being a couple..." Ken gulped. "I told them when they pushed me that we were going out together. They started to make fun of your Mongolian roots!" he hurriedly added as Oyuun's face blanched. "So I said, 'She's my girlfriend, so stop making fun of her'!"

"But, Ken, you could've just said something else instead of that," Iris pointed out. "There are many other ways..."

"But that's how I really feel," Ken whined miserably as he put his head on his desk.

Oyuun turned back to her seat and tried not to let herself lose her sanity. _Oh my god. Ken feuled some of the rumors...on purpose...does he really feel that way?_

"I've loved her ever since middle school," Ken admitted to Iris. "It's hard holding in your feelings, and I wanted a kind of comeback to get them to stop taunting her."

_And you're not caring that she's sitting right in front of you, hearing every word?_

Iris gave them a strained smile to show that she was trying her best to look supportive, despite the strangeness of the situation. "W-Well," she began, "you'll have to wait and see how Oyuun feels...first..."

"It's ok, Iris," Oyuun said. "That's between me and Ken. We will have a word on this later in the future." And that was all she said upon the subject for the rest of the day.

* * *

School ended more peacefully than it had that morning, although some students were still laughing about the pictures, now taken clean off. Oyuun heard that Amber got a warning from Nathaniel and Lovejoy at the same time, but hadn't paid much attention to her after the horrible incident. During second period, Castiel finally came in and when he did, refused to offer an explanation to the teacher. His cold gray eyes managed to land on Oyuun as he made his way to his seat and he had given her a smirk. Oyuun guessed that it was because he'd seen the pictures too.

Oyuun and Iris were simply walking together in the courtyard now, with Iris trying to introduce her to a school club. She'd shown her some of the ones that went on inside the building, but Oyuun didn't like them very much. Now she had two more options left: the basketball club, and the gardening club.

"Which club is Ken in?" Oyuun asked.

"Gardening," Iris answered. "He chose that yesterday. Do you want to join it too?"

Oyuun shrugged. "I guess I'll go see."

They went together towards a greenhouse that sheltered many potted plants inside. Once there, she saw some students (plus Ken) working on tending to the plants and fertilizing them, etc. But the only one they were greeted by was a green haired boy, the same one Oyuun had seen when she scanned the classroom.

"Hey Jade," Iris greeted cheerfully.

"Hello Iris," Jade returned. "Taking the new student around?"

"Yup. She's feeling much better now, so I thought I might."

Jade smiled and put the gardening trowel he was holding down on a bench. "That's good to hear, Oyuun," he said warmly. "I'm sorry you had to go through that on your first day."

"That's all right," Oyuun said, and gave him a smile.

Jade smiled back and suddenly noticed her talisman. "Oh, I've seen that somewhere before."

Oyuun looked at her talisman necklace, where the Abjiya was residing. "Oh, this? Um, I bought this as a souvenir from a vacation..." _Has he met my cousins? _she wondered.

Jade seemed thoughtful for a moment, but then dismissed it. "I can't remember right now. It's a nice necklace though."

"Thanks."

"Oyuun!" Ken called out from the greenhouse, and he excitedly rushed to to see her. "Oyuun, you're here! Come on, I've got to show you something!"

"Wha-"

But Ken was already dragging her away from Iris and Jade. The two of them didn't go after Ken and Oyuun, making Oyuun feel more awkward. "Ken, what are you doing?" she asked, trying to tug back. But Ken's grip was firm.

When they went around the perimeter of the greenhouse, Oyuun then noticed an _oboo _stacked up a few feet away from the fence. An _oboo _is basically a conical pile of stones with long tree branches sticking out at the top, usually six to ten feet in height, and traditionally used as a shrine for _gazriin ezen, _or nature spirits. A traveler coming by the _oboo _would walk around it three times and add a rock to the pile to show respect for the nature spirit. The increase in stones would also raise the spirit's rank and power. Sometimes other things could be offered as well, such as food, liquor, milk, or butter, and it was said that offering these things to a nature spirit could increase the power of the human soul.

This _oboo, _however, was only three feet tall with branches twice its height sticking out of it and a bit lopsided.

"I made it myself," Ken said proudly. "Remember when you told me about _oboo_s? I made it a rule for the gardening club now that whenever they come by here, they'll have to walk around it three times and add a rock to it."

_That must be a really weak gazriin ezen housed inside, _Oyuun couldn't help but remark in her mind.

"I told them the nature spirit would bless them with better gardening skills," Ken continued.

"That's...nice...Ken," Oyuun said slowly. She sighed and began walking away. "However, that's not going to change the fact that you lied about us."

Ken was shocked and rushed after her. "O-Oyuun! No, don't take it that way!"

"Stop it, Ken," she ordered. "I need some time to think..."

"Oyuun..." He stayed behind this time as she went back to Iris and Jade.

When she came to them again, they were starting a conversation on preventing pollution and saving the planet. Iris noticed her and and happily came her way. "So, Oyuun, what did Ken show you?"

"It's a little Mongolian shrine for nature spirits," Oyuun explained.

"Oh yeah, Ken's been telling everyone about it," Jade said. "He sounded so serious, I even took three rounds around it and added a stone just like he said. Some girls were talking about offering the spirit a soda too."

Oyuun frowned. "You can't really offer a _gazriin ezen _any soda."

"Oh? Then what do you offer it besides more stones?"

"Alcohol, milk, butter, and food."

"We sure don't have alcohol here," Jade remarked playfully. "But I'll try to let the girls know about the rest. So, how do you like this club?"

"It's good," she said.

"So you want to see the basketball club?" Iris asked her.

"Yeah, I'll still go," Oyuun agreed.

"Ok, I'll take you."

Right at that moment, Nathaniel came rushing out of the school looking flustered and upset. Oyuun noticed a paper in his hand, which she hoped wasn't for her. When he spotted them, he winced a little at the sight of Oyuun but came over anyway.

"Has anyone seen Castiel?" he asked.

"No," Jade replied truthfully.

"Nada," Iris threw in.

"Not at all," Oyuun answered.

Nathaniel made a loud _tsk _and paced around warily. "God, where could he be?"

"What is it?" Oyuun asked him, despite their altercation earlier.

"This absentee form," Nathaniel explained. "He's got to sign it for skipping first period. I've tried to find him to give it to him, but he's avoided me by all means."

Oyuun frowned. "Aren't his parents supposed to sign that?"

"Yes, but he's legally independent because of his parents' jobs. His father is an airplane pilot and his mother is an airline hostess. They're often absent due to their work, and so Castiel is usually called in to sign these."

_That must be lonely, _Oyuun thought as she tried to think of what life without her parents on a daily basis would be like. _Especially if he's an only child._

"Did you check his club?" Iris asked worriedly. "It's the basketball club."

"Of course I know which club it is. But I've gone there and he's left."

That seemed to put Nathaniel in a bit of a pinch, and Oyuun started feeling bad for him. The talisman gave off an aura urging Oyuun to help him somehow, because Abjiya did not think that Nathaniel willingly gave Amber the ID to photocopy.

So despite her reservations, Oyuun put a hand on the absentee form. "Um...If you'd like, I could convince him for you..."

Jade, Iris, and Nathaniel all stared at her as if she just sprouted tentacles.

"He won't be angry with me," she added. "If he saw the pictures, then he'd be laughing instead of shouting at me. Maybe then I could sneak a signature from him. And Nathaniel, I'm sorry for today. I judged wrongly. Consider this as payment for my mistakes."

Nathaniel thought it over for a moment, and sighed. "Well...it's worth a try...here, take it." He gave her the form. "I'd go alone, if I were you. Castiel might get intimidated by more than one person coming at him."

"Ok..."

"And so far, I've never heard of him hitting a girl, so you should be safe."

"I'll try my best."

"Just know that I won't blame you if you don't succeed, ok?" Nathaniel said. "You can take that as my payment for not being able to stand up for you." He thought a moment, and said, "I should also treat you to something later in the future. I guess you deserve more than what I just offered."

"No, no," Oyuun said, "that would be doing too much! Ok, so, I'll go now."

"Don't force him if it gets too rough," Nathaniel called after her as she started walking.

When she turned back to get one last glimpse of them, they were all staring after her as though she were a soldier going out to war. A war that she may never come back from. _Is Castiel really that scary? I know he was angry with me, but if he had the choice, would he have...?_

And so Oyuun wound up walking to the gymnasium with the form in her hands. She already knew where it was when she looked down at it from a school window, so it was easy to find. She could hear some basketball playing going on inside, and when she opened the doors, she was greeted with the smell of sweat and rubber. Some players had stopped when they saw her (and evidently, they were whispering Butt-saikhan again), but Oyuun ignored them and stepped into the gym. Some of their eyes were on her as she walked, and when she couldn't take it anymore, she turned to face them and cleared her throat before she spoke.

"Anyone seen Castiel?" she asked.

Everyone was silent for a moment until Oyuun heard a voice that'd been yelling at her the other day. "That's me you want." He stepped out in front of the others, still dressed in his T-shirt, black jacket, and black jeans. When he saw her, though, he gave another smirk and even started laughing a little. The other players dispersed to continue their game, but he beckoned her over.

Oyuun sighed at the sight of Castiel's mirth; obviously aimed at her; and went over to him. _So he didn't leave the gym, _she thought. _He just hid and waited for Nathaniel to leave._

"Hey Butt-saikhan," he said just as they were within speaking distance of each other. "Nice picture you got earlier."

Oyuun blushed a deep red and the talisman had to scold her with forceful aura to keep her from giving up. "It's not like I liked it, ok? Amber and her friends put that up." She did realize that maybe she should have mentioned the form first, but buttering him up with some conversation seemed like a better strategy.

"Oh, Amber as in, Nathaniel's sister?"

"Yeah."

Castiel puffed out a breath. "Talk about a real pain in the butt. You got it tough there. But that picture really was funny."

Oyuun gave a mental facepalm. "All right, so you find it funny. That's not the issue here-"

"You know, if you dye your hair, you shouldn't be afraid to show it."

_What?_

Castiel looked serious. "I'm telling the truth. I mean, I dye my hair too."

"Well, the thing is, my hair isn't-"

"White is a totally original color. Not many people use it. It's almost rebellious. I kind of like it."

Oyuun was beginning to feel embarrassed by now. "Really...That's not what I came here for..." She sighed. "There's this form here, you see, that needs your signature. It's very important and I was just told by Principal Lovejoy to get you to sign it."

Castiel frowned. "Really? Why wouldn't she give it to me herself?"

"She was busy with other work, and happened to spy me. So voila, here I am."

Castiel took the form and stared at it. After a while, he turned back to her. "Lovejoy doesn't deal with these kinds of things. Only Nathaniel does." His eyes narrowed at her. "Did he send you?"

Oyuun almost stammered trying to find an excuse. That was when she thought of the perfect one. "Well you see, I got into a little trouble with him. I thought he helped Amber put up those pictures, since I'd given him my ID yesterday, and when I got too angry at him, I...slapped him..." It wasn't entirely false, but it was a good enough excuse to use.

"You what?" Castiel looked interested, intrigued, _happy _even.

_Why does he look happy to hear that the student body president got slapped? _But there was no time for that. "Yeah, and he got mad with me, and he said that if I didn't want to get suspended I should do this for him. My parent's would kill me if I got suspended even once, so you understand now why I'm doing this?"

The redhaired boy smirked and gave a thumbs up to Oyuun. "I should've been there," he remarked.

"You have a bone to pick with him?"

"One or two. But you do realize that this won't make me sign it, right?"

Oyuun almost screamed but calmed herself down. "Why not?"

"Cause I don't want to."

"But...I might get suspended..."

Castiel gave her an emotionless look. "You think I'd really care?"

_Oh boy. _

"You don't really mean anything to me, so why should I sign that just for you? It'll affect my record as well."

"If you cut class, though, you don't really care about your record," Oyuun pointed out.

Castiel smirked again. "Hm, you're sharp. Ok, I just don't like signing things from Nathaniel. So you can take that back to him and go on your merry way."

Oyuun decided to give it one last shot. "But I really think you should-" She stopped midway, though, because a sudden flash of light blinded her eyes for a moment. "Aiya!" she exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" Castiel asked in alarm.

Oyuun covered her eyes with her hands, dropping the absentee form. When her sight was coming back, she groped around for it and looked back to where she saw the light. _It was as if someone used a mirror to flash the sun's light into my eyes, _she thought. _But there's not that much sunlight here. Either someone has a really bright flashlight, or..._

The suddenly dark and gloomy aura that came into the gymnasium proved her fears. _It's a shulam! _She touched her talisman to let Abjiya know, but the auras that came out of her necklace told her that Abjiya had already been alerted. _Why is a shulam, a Mongolian demon, here in the first place? _The darkness was surely that given off by a shulam, because Oyuun had dealt with some before and though she'd crossed paths with European demons they never gave off the scent and feel of the plains like this one did.

_He's almost six hundred years old, _Oyuun calculated. _A little young for a shulam. His powers aren't something to be afraid of...But why this gymnasium? _Unless Ken's _oboo _had invited one to their school? That hardly seemed like it, but with its improper shape, it wasn't an impossibility. Still, the important thing was that this shulam knew she was here, and it didn't like her. The flash, for example, came from its displeasure at seeing her.

"It's nothing," she assured a confused Castiel. "Dust came into my eyes, that's all."

"You sure? That scream sounded like it hurt a lot more than just dust."

"I was surprised, that's all. My eyes are kind of sensitive."

"So did your contacts slip or something?" Castiel asked.

"What? I don't have contacts!"

"Ok, ok, whatever."

Oyuun huffed and looked warily around for the shulam. The aura was still there, but visibly it was nowhere to be seen. She sighed and stared down at the now-dusty absentee form. Then she got an idea. _Did the shulam blind me because it didn't want Castiel signing the form? _Her golden eyes gave Castiel a sidelong glance and then turned back to the paper. _It's worth a shot. _

"Hey, Castiel..."

"What is it now?" he asked irritably.

"I know how this'll hurt your record and everything," she explained as slowly as possible, "but it's absolutely necessary that you _sign this form-"_

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a basketball was thrown straight into her stomach. "Oof!" It hit her with so much force that she actually fell back, but Abjiya's spirit fought against it and pushed Oyuun back on her feet.

"Hey, who threw that?" Castiel angrily demanded of the basketball players. "Did you know you just hit a girl in the stomach?"

"But no one threw anything," a player protested.

"We were taking a break because the ball got thrown into the supply closet," a second one explained. He then saw the basketball laying near Oyuun's feet. "Oh hey, there it is!"

"How'd it get there?"

"I dunno."

Oyuun began to suspect something fishy, but knew for sure that it was the shulam. A third trial might be worth it.

"That's a pretty lame excuse you got there," Castiel growled. "Whoever threw that, just step up and apologize now."

_Now you're being chivalric? _Oyuun shook her head and and started on her next plan. "It's ok, Castiel, I don't really care. All I need is for you to sign...your...form.."

"You can't be serious. You were hit pretty hard, you know!"

Right at that moment, however, some of the basketball players screamed in fright as one of the hoops suddenly tottered and toppled over. But the thing about it was that it was coming down _right on Oyuun!_

"Abjiya!" Oyuun yelled instinctively, and the Abjiya shielded her in time. Castiel didn't know about that, however, as he jumped at her and pushed her to the ground to get her out of the way.

The hoop landed with a loud _clang _onto the basketball court only a feet or two away from Oyuun and Castiel. That was strange, considering how far it had been from them a moment ago and that the angle of the fall veered more to the left than it should have been.

_Oh my god! _Oyuun wanted to scream. _I...I was almost killed! _A sinister hiss passed through the air for just a moment, and Oyuun thought she could make out the distant glint of a demonic eye peering at her from somewhere. The trick it had pulled was nothing more than a silly prank, for a higher ranked shulam would have done more. But the question was, why was this shulam helping Castiel get away with skipping class?

"What the HELL?" Castiel cursed. No one could have pushed that hoop, because frankly not a one of the players could have done it without excessive manpower. "Just what is going on today? Hey, Oyuun, are you all right? I didn't push you too hard, did I?"

"I have to go," Oyuun frantically stated to a very bewildered basketball club. "Forget the form, Castiel. I'll just let it slide as thanks for saving me."

"But-"

"Really, I can't stay!"

She put his bewildered face behind him as she exited the gymnasium. Then when she came back to Nathaniel, who was standing now only with Iris, she was a little sad to see the disappointment in his features but handed back the form anyway. She did her best to muster up an apologetic smile and kept her eyes downcast without betraying any of her fear. "I couldn't do it after all," she said softly. "He just refused and walked away."

Nathaniel sighed. "I knew it. Thank you, anyway."

"You did your best," Iris said encouragingly.

"I know."

The talisman quivered against her chest, and Oyuun put her hand to it to let Abjiya know she felt the same way too. From now on, she'd have to keep an extra eye out, for Sweet Amoris High was now haunted.

* * *

**Footnotes**

*_Ami, suns...udha souls..._In Mongolian shamanism, there is the belief that a person holds three souls: the suld, the ami, and the suns. The suld is the one that resides in the body, but while the ami and suns do too they can travel freely in and out of the body. If the suld gets separated from the body then that person would die. Ami and suns souls can go in and out and the person won't die. However if they are out too frequently it can cause problems like mental illness and comas.

The udha soul is an extra soul given to a chosen shaman at birth by the spirits, and it helps them gather other spirit helpers for protection. Without that protection, journeys between the otherworlds would be dangerous.

**_...the sun shines brightly with her warmth..._Mongolians do not believe in a feminine moon and masculine sun like most other cultures do. Because the sun's rays are warm and nurture plants, it is almost motherly, which to them makes it 'female'. The moon is 'male' because of its strong, stoic silence and watchfulness over the tribes at night, like a hunter.

***_...jingle cones and ongon..._Jingle cones are as the name says, cones that jingle. They are long and thin in shape and are always dangling from a shaman's robe. Ongon can refer to anything else metallic that a shaman uses or wears, but here it is the metallic ribbing and decoration on the robe.

+..._yurt..._A yurt is a circular and domed portable tent most commonly used by the nomadic peoples of central Asia, which obviously includes Mongolia.


	3. The Basketball Club

Ok, here's the next chapter. It took some brainstorming but voila, here it is.

And in case you're wondering, Dajan is in the Basketball Club because I want him to. I want to include as many canon characters from "My Candy Love" as possible and there just doesn't seem to be any space to fit him in later if he's not from Sweet Amoris High.

* * *

**The Basketball Club  
**

* * *

Oyuun came back to school the next day wearing her talisman again, as the Abjiya had instructed her to the previous night. Oyuun had never had to deal with a _shulam_ at her school before, which was why Abjiya was being cautious. There was no way the demon could actually hurt Oyuun, even without the Abjiya, but she figured that she'd be better safe than sorry. And, as Abjiya had pointed out, one _shulam_ in the gymnasium could lead to more _shulam_ elsewhere, especially if they didn't want Oyuun exorcising them. But so far she only believed that they would be concentrated on school grounds.

How on earth could Mongolian demons come to haunt another country, you wonder?

It's just the same as a cargo ship carrying vegetables can introduce a new breed of insect to another land. As Mongolian people come over and eventually die there, carrying their tradition as well as belief, _shulam_ will more or less appear although not as frequently as the native demons and ghosts of the new country. Other spirits like _gazriin ezen_ and _yek* _may come as well.

It was only pure chance that Oyuun was able to discover this particular _shulam _haunting Sweet Amoris' gymnasium. And so, after school, she planned to go back to investigate. And the only way to do that was...

* * *

"What? Are you sure?" Iris looked skeptical.

"Yes, I am," Oyuun answered.

Jade scratched his chin. "Wow...you sure don't look the sportsy type. I guess you never know, huh?"

Ken looked like he was ready to cry. "Oyuun...Oyuun...why? Why the basketball club?"

Oyuun sighed, knowing how weird it sounded. Just after school ended for the day, she'd been so adamant in the investigation of the _shulam_ that she'd insisted to Iris on joining the basketball club. Lucky for her she'd left her club choice undecided yesterday, or else she wouldn't have such a wonderful opportunity as this. She just wondered how opportunistic it might prove to be.

"Um, I can get the application for you," Iris said, "and we'll have a talk with the basketball club president tomorrow..."

"You don't have to worry about being rejected," Jade assured Oyuun. "These clubs are just for fun, and the basketball club really doesn't have any connections to the real team."

"I kind of guessed that," Oyuun said with a smile. "And guys...I know you think it's strange of me, but...my old school didn't have anything like this, so I decided, why not try something totally new? I've been fascinated with basketball for a long time, anyways." That was an excuse, of course, but it wasn't as if she was free to let them all know the truth.

"As long as you're happy," Jade smiled back.

Only Iris and Ken seemed a little perturbed about Oyuun's choice.

"Aw, Oyuun, I would have chosen the basketball club if I knew." Ken was actually making sniffing noises by now.

"Well, come on then," Iris said at last. "Let's go get you an application."

She and Oyuun set off then for the gymnasium, leaving the gardening club behind. Oyuun felt bad seeing Ken again there, but that didn't erase the fact that some of the rumors about them existed at all and that _he _had a hand behind it.

Iris already seemed to notice the tension between them before they even met up with Ken and Jade, and she voiced her thoughts to Oyuun as they walked. "You know, Oyuun," she said, "maybe you should try making it up with Ken later. He seems so sad. I'm sure he didn't mean to say those things. Or, well, he did, but that's just how he feels. You'll have to take things a little more sensitively with him."

"I know," the shaman girl said wearily. "I know that Ken did me wrong, and that I've also hurt him. But I just...I just feel awkward when I think about it. I only want some time to absorb everything, that's all."

"Well, ok, as long as you don't completely hate him."

_How could I hate him? _she thought sadly. _He was my only friend before I came here. And yet, how could I have known that he felt this way about me? __If only Amber hadn't...  
_But that didn't make any sense the more she thought about it. Even if Amber hadn't bullied him, she believed Kentin would still have found a way to make his love known. That was one of his endearing qualities in some places...but in others, it was awkward.

The Abjiya resonated an aura of reassurance. Somewhere along the lines, she also emanated something like, 'Don't worry, you'll know the answer later'.

"Thank you, Abjiya," Oyuun whispered to herself, quiet enough so that only she and the Abjiya could hear.

Iris and Oyuun reached the gymnasium in no time, and the redhead led her to a little booth where applications for joining the club were placed. Oyuun hadn't noticed it before because it was tucked away in a little corner somewhere beside the bleachers.

Iris took a paper from the pile and gave it to Oyuun, along with a pen that had been conveniently laid there. "Here you go," she said. "Just fill out whatever is necessary. Do you want me to wait for you, or do you want to go on with this on your own?"

Oyuun looked over the form to see what she'd have to fill out. "It's ok, I can do this. I'll even explore a little. If I need any help, I'll ask somebody."

"All right," Iris said. She looked a little reluctant to leave, though, almost as if she were afraid of leaving Oyuun behind. "Just...be careful ok?"

Oyuun couldn't help but notice the fear in her voice. "Oh? Why?"

"Castiel was going on at lunch about how a hoop almost fell down on you," Iris answered worriedly. "So did the other basketball club members."

Oyuun couldn't have heard the talk at lunch, because she had been eating in the courtyard while combing school grounds for any other demonic traces. "Oh, that? It was just an accident yesterday. I'll be fine, don't worry."

"Er, also...I don't think there are any other girl members here..."

"That's fine. Not all girls are nice like you; I mean, take a look at Amber."

"If you say so."

When Iris finally left, Oyuun moved to sit down on a bleacher and fill out her form. The first few questions were easy; first name, last name, date of birth, class number, high school year, etc. But moving on to the incentives, like, 'Why did you choose this club?' things began to get a little more difficult. _Should I put in the reason that I told Jade, Iris, and Ken? No, even if they couldn't reject me, it'd be too imposing to write something so superficial. I should just focus on projecting my 'love for basketball'._

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. If only the _shulam _had chosen a different place to haunt, such as the gardening club or the art club, then Oyuun wouldn't have to stress herself out trying to lie to worm her way in. It was easy enough listing the reasons why she'd do gardening and art...but basketball? Oyuun hardly knew any of the rules, and she hated the rubbery, sweaty smell of the gym.

"Stressing out, Butt-saikhan? Are you taking a test, or what?"

Oyuun jolted at the sarcasm she'd grown to recognize and turned her golden eyes upon Castiel, who'd managed to sneak up beside her on the bleachers. "C-Castiel!" When she realized that he might look at the application, she flipped it over. "Uh...what are you doing here?"

Castiel frowned. "Newsflash: I go to this club."

"Oh...right..." Oyuun blushed in embarrassment. "I'd just forgotten." Looking at him again, he was more properly dressed for the club than he'd been the other day. He was actually wearing the jersey and shorts, and to tell the truth, he didn't look all that bad in them. _Oh, right, he doesn't have to hide from Nathaniel today, _she reminded herself bemusedly.

"Does having a ridiculous nickname give you memory loss too?"

Oyuun tried to turn away from him to continue her application. "I don't have such a stupid nickname. My _real _name, however, is Oyuun _Baht-seh-khan; _do you hear me? Or do I have to repeat myself?" She couldn't see Castiel because she just turned her back on him, but she could tell that he was still sitting near her.

Castiel gave an amused chuckle. "All right already, I hear you. So, what're you doing out here?" He tried to peer over her shoulder to look at the application.

Oyuun hurriedly flipped it over again. "It's nothing! Nothing you need to see, anyways."

But Castiel had, in one way or another, seen enough to know what it was. "No way! You're joining this club?"

_OH MY FREAKING GOD, CASTIEL! _She wanted to scream. _Can't you make things easy for me at least ONCE? _Instead, she replied a little quietly, "Yes...I...am..."

He stared at her as if she were some alien that dropped out of the sky. "You'll be the only girl here, you know that?"

"Is that supposed to stop me from pursuing the sport I love?" _Not?_

He seemed a bit thoughtful. "I guess not."

"So, I'd appreciate it if you gave me some space," she declared matter-of-factly. "If you're going to lecture me or even degrade me, I'm not going to hear it."

Things were quiet for a while as Oyuun continued writing again. During this time all she heard was the sound of the pen marking the paper along with the squeaking of shoes and bouncing of balls on the smooth gymnasium floor. It grew to be so quiet she wondered whether Castiel was still with her or not. When she looked from the corner of her eye, he was surprisingly still there.

"Um, Castiel?" She started feeling a bit creeped out. "Why aren't you playing?"

"Hm? Oh, I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"You're a lot stronger than you look."

"Th...thanks?"

He smirked and slid off the bleachers. "Well, now that you're joining, you'd better be ready. It's all boys out there...Don't let yourself get trampled, ok, Butt-saikhan?"

"I said my name isn't...! Gah!" Oyuun stomped her foot as Castiel left and almost tore her application in two. _No, no, don't let him get to you, _she told herself. _Just...just finish this darn application...what was it asking for again? Oh yeah, my phone number..._

A little while later, she was finally done. All she had to do now was drop the application into a ballot box that'd been placed on the application booth. She did so with a sigh of regret and couldn't help but feel as though she'd sealed her fate as she watched the paper fall through. _Now, time to explore. _Oyuun turned around to make her way across the basketball court, heading for the hallway that led to the locker rooms and such.

There wasn't much activity in the hallway, which only had the necessary bathrooms, boys' and girls' locker rooms, supply closet, and etc. One of the doors, however, hid a stairway that led up to an overlooking room, kind of like the room where sports emcees would give detail on the game over a mic. Oyuun climbed the stairs and turned on the lights. When she entered, she headed towards the big windows where she could see everyone playing on the court.

_No shulam here, _she thought, and withdrew from the window to look around. There were desks, filing cabinets, a water dispenser...everything looked in tip-top shape, and Oyuun could tell that someone cleaned the room from time to time. After she'd finished, she turned off the lights and went back down the stairs. She'd only closed the door when she was accosted by one of the players.

He was African-American, with pulled back dreads and inquisitive brown eyes. "Hey, just wanted to ask you, what were you doing up there?"

"Oh, I was just looking around," Oyuun said.

"Ok. You must be new, so in case you didn't know, that place is off-limits."

"Really? Oops, sorry." She tried her best to make herself look innocently embarrassed.

The boy smiled. "It's all right, just remember it from now on."

"Dajan!" One of the players called out. "Hey, Dajan! Let's go back to the game!"

"Coming," Dajan answered, and turned to go back to playing. "Sorry man, I was just helping this girl with some of the rules."

"That white-haired girl?" a player asked. "Hey, isn't she Kentin Howard's girlfriend?"

"She's his girlfriend?" Castiel asked confusedly.

"Didn't you hear? Amber was telling everyone about it."

Oyuun jolted and tried to hide herself deeper into the hallway. She fled into the girls' locker room to be safe. _Good gods, I don't want them finding me while they're talking about me! Ugh, and why this stuff with Ken again? _It made her feel very awkward and a little sad at the same time.

"Amber?" Castiel scoffed. Oyuun had kept the locker room door open, so she could still hear what they were saying. "Most of the stuff she says are lies. Why would you believe them?"

"Ken told her himself!" the same player protested.

Dajan was the next to speak, and he didn't sound very happy. "Guys, c'mon. Are we really going to have a debate over this? Gossiping about someone, especially when they're new, is wrong on so many levels. Let's not be a bunch of girls and leave the poor girl alone."

The topic was ended there, and Oyuun soon felt safe enough to go out. The Abjiya gave her a bit of a scolding for being so scared, but Oyuun couldn't help it. _I'm surprised, though, _she thought. _There are actually some people here who think rationally. _

Oyuun checked the bathroom next. She did a full search of the girl's side but only peeked into the boy's, and in the end there were no strange auras or presences in either. There didn't seem to be much else to discover, as the boys' locker room (and Oyuun refused to go in there) and the supply closet were the only ones left. The supply closet was a bit dark and dusty, but again, no presence.

_Well, I'll be here a little more when my application is accepted, _Oyuun reasoned. _So wherever this shulam is hiding, it can't hide much longer._

* * *

That evening after Oyuun came home, as she was doing her homework on the dining room table, her mother came in from talking on the phone. Though the young shaman was still focusing on several algebra equations, she couldn't help but notice from the corner of her eye that her mother seemed enthusiastic about something.

"_Eje_**?" she asked. At home, Oyuun always spoke Mongolian. "Mother? What's the occasion?"

"Oyuun, this is good news," her mother gushed. "I was just on the phone with Principal Shermansky."

Oyuun's head perked up. "Good news?"

"She says you've joined a club at school!"

_Oh, that, _Oyuun thought while slightly blushing. Her parents were always on her case about making friends and joining school groups, probably because they were worried that she'd be too lonely at school. They weren't born as shamans like she was; their more natural black hair and brown eyes being a clue; so of course, they wouldn't have known what it was like to be in their daughter's situation. Still, they always tried their best, and Oyuun couldn't help but love them for it.

"The basketball club is a good way to go," her mother continued. "It'll give you the exercise that your father's always saying you're lacking. Not to mention the friends you could make!"

Oyuun smiled. "Yes, well, I suppose father especially is pleased that I can make different friends. He didn't seem to like it when I mentioned Ken coming to Sweet Amoris."

Her mother stroked back a loose strand of long, jet-black hair and gave her a supportive smile. "Never mind him, _okhin_***. You know how he feels about how a boy should really be."

Oyuun nodded. Her father's ideas on 'how a boy should really be' included something along the lines of bravery, chivalry, daring, inner and outer strength, understanding, and calmness. Such ideals seemed to be a prominent thing within their family, as even Oyuun's aunts and uncles; the parents to her shaman cousins, and again, not shamans themselves; believed in them vigorously. While Oyuun didn't believe Ken to be all that bad, her father was afraid that his weakness both inside and out might affect her somehow.

"He gets bullied even by _girls_," her father had once said. "That's rather pathetic if you ask me!"

_I'm sure Ken will change in time,_ Oyuun had thought, and still did. _He's still got a lot to learn. _

"Well, I'll let you continue your homework," her mother finally said, and left.

"Ok, _Eje._"

Eventually, Oyuun finished everything. It took around an hour or two, but it was worth it. She looked at the clock; the time was around six now. _I need to relax, _she thought as she stretched her arms. _Hmm, what should I do...Ah, but wait, _she checked herself, _I have to go see if Eje or Aav+ need my help first__. _

Oyuun stretched again before rising up from her chair. She shuffled her homework together neatly, went into her room to put it in her backpack, and was about to go to the kitchen to help her mother prepare dinner when her cell phone that she'd been charging on her nightstand suddenly rang.

_Someone's calling? _she wondered, and went over to look at the number. _Why, it's Ken! Wow, just after Eje and I were talking about him._

Oyuun unplugged the phone and picked up the call. Things were still awkward between her and Ken, but she didn't want to lose their friendship and frankly, neither did he.

"_Baina uu_?" she asked into the phone. That was how one usually said 'hello' on the phone in Mongolian, and it became something of a tradition between the two of them to say it when picking up each other's calls.

"Oyuun!" Ken's voice sounded much cheerier than it had back at the gardening club.

"Hey Kentin. What's up?"

"Oh, I just...I was just...well, I..." Ken sounded too happy for words. Oyuun guessed that he had been frantic over whether she'd pick up the phone or not. "Oh, Oyuun, I'm so happy!" She knew it. "I was afraid you'd ignore my call!"

"Well, Ken, I always check my phone..."

"It's just, you weren't talking to me all day today...and you were angry at me yesterday...how could I _not _be worried?"

Oyuun sighed. "You know why! Anyways, what did you call for?"

"I...well, I wanted to say sorry."

"For?"

"For lying about us to Amber."

Oyuun suddenly felt shameful for treating him the way she did, especially since the reason behind his phone call was now clear. Her mouth opened to say something, but the words wouldn't come out. In the end, she bit down on her lower lip and kept silent.

"It's too late to take back what I said about my feelings for you," Ken continued, "both to Amber and Iris. I only hope that it hasn't ruined our friendship. I know you'd probably feel a little awkward...but if anything, I still want us to be friends. I do still want you as a girlfriend," he added hurriedly, and the frankness of the statement made Oyuun frown, "but if that pushes you away from me, then I'd rather we still be friends."

"Ken..."

"I know you're still angry with me, Oyuun, but believe me."

Something struck her mind then, a question she wanted answered. "Ken, if you felt that way about me before...why didn't you tell me? Why wait until now?"

Ken gave a nervous chuckle. "Oh, you see, I'd planned to before but you were moving and I thought it'd the last I saw of you. So when I saw you again at the same school, I didn't want to lose that chance."

_Awkward, much? _But that was only a sarcastic remark. Inside, she'd felt relieved. Perhaps not as panicked as Ken but still, relieved. "Thank you, Ken. Give me some time and I'll forget all about this incident."

"Heehee," Ken chuckled, more confidently this time. "Friends again?"

"Friends again."

"Yay! Oh my gosh, Oyuun, you've really made my day! Ok, I'll see you at school tomorrow!"

"You too."

"_Bayartai, _Oyuun!" Apparently, their little tradition also included goodbyes.

"_Bayartai, _Ken."

* * *

"So..." Dajan said as the other members of the basketball club crowded around her, Castiel included. "Um, Oyuun, is it? Uh...you like basketball?"

Oyuun felt so awkward and dumb standing in the midst of a bunch of boys while dressed in a jersey and shorts of her own. They were obviously tailored for a smaller person (but even then, she had to wear a T-shirt underneath her jersey because of its low arm holes), and it was a lucky thing that they were ever found for her to wear at all. The school was flexible, though, and seemed to have accommodations for just about anybody, anywhere.

"Er, yeah," she answered stiffly.

Castiel smirked. "So, how's it feel now that you're a part of us?"

Oyuun fiddled a little with her hair, which she'd tied back into a simple ponytail. "It feels rewarding," she lied.

"You've always loved basketball?" Dajan asked again for the third time.

"Yes, I have," Oyuun answered. "And I..." _Oh crap! _she lamented mentally. _I forgot to read up on the rules! What am I supposed to do now? _"...well, my parents never really approved of basketball as a sport for girls," she lied. "So I wasn't able to learn much about it. I played several times in middle school, and those were the best. I...I signed up here hoping to learn, and play more..."

There was silence for a while and Oyuun thought she could hear crickets chirping.

"Welcome to the club, then," Dajan said at last.

Oyuun pulled off a smile, but it wasn't without its own insincerity. Her interview with the basketball club president was taking place without Iris' help and frankly, without the privacy Oyuun had first imagined. Dajan turned out to be its president and just when he was beginning to talk to her, almost every single one of the basketball club members made a point in being present to listen to their every word.

Also, the only reason she'd changed out into a basketball uniform in the first place was because Dajan insisted upon it when he found out that she was the girl who'd signed up for the basketball club. Castiel especially seemed amused, but Oyuun did not.

_The things I do as a shaman, _Oyuun thought with an inner sigh of despair. She could almost swear that she felt the Abjiya laughing at her from the talisman, which didn't make things any better.

"Well, before we begin," Dajan started, "one thing about basketball is that you can't wear any jewelry or glasses while you play." His eyes fell upon her talisman. "So, you'll have to take off your necklace."

Oyuun felt as if he had bashed cymbals on both sides of her head. The Abjiya resonated a similarly shocked aura. "Uh...But...really?"

"Sorry, Oyuun, but it's absolutely necessary."

Oyuun looked down at the talisman, a circular pendant made of animal bone with an ancient Mongolian word carved into the middle and neat rust red bordering all around it. She honestly didn't know what to do as she looked at it; the Abjiya didn't seem to be giving off any helpful hints, either; so in the end, to accommodate to the rules, Oyuun reluctantly slid the necklace off and walked away to put it away in her backpack.

_I feel naked, _she remarked to herself as she came back to the group, her neck now bare and no talisman resting on her chest. _Especially since the Abjiya told me to keep it on. But I can't argue with the club rules...So I'll just have to look after myself..._

"That wasn't so hard to do, now was it, Butt-saikhan?" Castiel teased.

"Quit it, Castiel," Dajan chided when he saw Oyuun preparing to protest. "You said yourself yesterday that Amber couldn't be believed. Why do you keep using the nickname that she made up?"

"That picture was comedy gold. It doesn't really have anything to do with what's true or what's false."

"Castiel..."

"Look, it's not like I'm bullying her or anything. The guys here repeat it every day too, so don't single me out."

As Oyuun's golden eyes scanned the crowd, the rest of the boys either turned sheepishly away, whistled indistinct tunes, or scratched the backs of their necks nervously.

"This is ridiculous, man!" Dajan exclaimed with exasperation. "Can't we all just-"

"Dajan," Oyuun interrupted. "It's ok...I can defend myself."

Dajan grew quiet, but he was still vexed. However, he just didn't know what to say. His mouth opened to speak several times, but out of each of those times, he ended up closing it without saying anything.

"I hope we can continue now," Oyuun remarked to the club. "I didn't come here to end up wasting my time listening to you all make fun of me. If that's what's going to happen, though, I might as well go home right now and do something more useful."

She could pleasantly see that the sharpness of her tone had gotten through to some of the boys. Castiel's smirks disappeared, making her feel somewhat victorious, and Dajan looked on at her with a relieved smile. Oyuun smiled back, glad that at least one person in her new club cared about her.

"The young miss is right," Dajan said playfully. "We can't waste our time. You guys go ahead and do your warmups and usual drills; I'll be helping her grasp the basics."

The other members dispersed without a look back. Most of them moved into their own groups and started personal conversations, but Castiel went off to the side and went about his business alone. Oyuun tried to ignore how lonely he seemed, at least to her, and kept reminding herself that he still called her "Butt-saikhan" even when she didn't like it, and that he thought her hair was dyed when it clearly wasn't. _Aha, that's one hole in his reasoning, _she thought. _He said Amber was full of lies, but he so readily __believed what she and her friends wrote about my hair. __So why should he even deserve the least bit of pity from me? _

She put that way in another corner of her mind, though, as Dajan pulled her aside to the hoop opposite of the other players. He asked someone to pass him a ball and caught it as it ended its smooth, arcing flight.

"Ok," he began with the ball under his arm. "I'm sure you've seen some basketball games before in your life. Tell me what you know so far about the sport."

Oyuun fiddled with her ponytail as she tried to think of what to say. "I know that each team has to try and get their ball into the opponent's hoop. And even though they do get the ball through the hoop, the ball is switched between teams after every score." She thought some more, and said, "The ball can only be taken across the court by dribbling it or by passing it on to another player. And I think that's about it."

Dajan nodded. "All right, you got it pretty good." He took the ball in both his hands and proceeded to throw it out to Oyuun, who caught it a little awkwardly in her arms. "Ah, but your catch is pretty weak."

"That throw _was _a little sudden..."

"Sorry," Dajan apologized, "but this I think should be where our lesson begins. See, in basketball, you don't catch the ball in your arms. You catch it with your hands out, like this." He put his hands up, fingers pointing outward, the thumbs almost touching; almost as if he were showing her a big surprise. "Kind of like you're stopping it. That way, it doesn't hit you as bad and you can still keep your composure for whatever you're going to do next. The same rule applies to throwing it. You throw it with your hands on the ball's sides just like you do when you catch it."

"Like this?" Oyuun adjusted her hands to match Dajan's description.

"Good!" he congratulated her. "Now all you gotta do is push out from your palms and with your fingers to get the right trajectory."

Oyuun did it as he said, and at first it slipped rigidly from her fingers. On the second try, though, the ball sailed effortlessly back into Dajan's hands. "Oh," she said. "That makes it much easier."

Dajan nodded. "Now, let's try catching it again."

Oyuun put her hands out like Dajan had taught her, and when he threw the ball she was able to catch it like he did.

Dajan looked at her progress with approval. "This is good," he remarked. "Here, we'll just keep practicing on your catch and throw for today so you can get used to it."

_Whoopee, _Oyuun thought a little sarcastically. _That sounds fun. _But to Dajan, all she said was "Ok."

They went ahead and played catch for a little while, stopping several times so Dajan could direct the club for a bit. Oyuun took some of the opportunities to 'use' the bathroom (when in reality, she was just checking it again) and check the supply closet. There were still no presences in each. It was a real bummer, however, that she couldn't go up to the emcee room because it was off-limits.

_And sneaking into the boy's bathroom and locker room would be a taboo, _she had reasoned, _and everyone will make fun of me again if they caught me snooping around those rooms. _

That ruled out pretty much most of the gymnasium as a whole. So, there had to be a better way, right? Luckily for Oyuun, she _did _come prepared.

While she and Dajan were still practicing on the catching-and-throwing exercises, she pretended to need the bathroom again and apologized to him profusely.

"You sure need the bathroom a lot," Dajan remarked, as though he suspected her of something.

Oyuun tried to make herself look embarrassed. "Well, you see, it's a bit of an emergency...a girl thing...oh, you wouldn't understand, and I don't want to go into detail, so let me just say that if you don't want blood all over the floor then please let me go to the bathroom."

Of course, Dajan didn't understand, but at the mention of blood he caved in. "What? Blood? What are you waiting for then? Go!"

"Thank you!"

She rushed across the court and into the girl's locker room as though she really did have an emergency. Sticking around long enough only to make it look like she was getting something out of her backpack, Oyuun quickly took a grab at some burnt herbs she'd prepared beforehand and her talisman then rushed into the bathroom. She set the talisman on a purse hook on the bathroom's main door and made a connection to the Abjiya.

_Abjiya, _she called out, _tell me if my way is clear. I need to reach the emergency exit at the end of the hall, but I don't want anyone spying on me._

She waited for a while, and was delighted when she was answered back. _I'll block the hall for you momentarily, _the Abjiya said. _But you must be quick, both in going__ out and in coming back in. I trust that you're going to put up some wards now?_

_Yes, Abjiya, that's just what I'm thinking of doing.  
_

_All right then, young one, go!  
_

Oyuun, her fist full of fragrant burnt herbs, opened the bathroom door ever-so-cautiously. The talisman would stay behind the door, since there really was no point in bringing it along, and she needed the Abjiya to look after the hall for her. So she slid out, leaving the Abjiya behind, and making a quick run for the emergency exit. True to her word, the Abjiya successfully blocked the hall, for not a one of the club members noticed her movement and exit. A small door blocker was placed in between the door so it wouldn't close completely on her.

That placed Oyuun outside, at the very back of the gymnasium. She took a moment to make sure all the herbs were in her hand, and then began to stand still. Her fist opened up until she was simply holding the herbs in her palm. They never stirred even though a breeze blew. Smoke began to rise from them, and a few turned orange-red with heat; they were being burnt again by shamanic power. Her eyes closed, her mind focused, her breathing slowed...until, a single yet sudden whisper came from her lips that broke the silence. "Wind of the plains," she spell-chanted, "scatter these leaves."

The breeze that had blown before was suddenly increasing in proportion and swept the smoking herbs away, almost as if an invisible hand took them from Oyuun. Her eyes opened then to track the movements of the little burnt leaves, and she was pleased to see that they were distributed evenly over the perimeter of the gymnasium. A few moments later, the wind died down and the herbs were in place. Oyuun closed her eyes again, focused once more, and releasing some of her _buyanhishig, _or energy, declared these words in Mongolian. "_The ward is set; demon,__ you're trapped!_"

A burst of shamanic power echoed throughout the school grounds. Only those who were spiritually sensitive could feel it; otherwise, it went undetected. Oyuun could feel it especially, all around the gymnasium. She was rather pleased with her work and rushed back in through the emergency exit. She carelessly kicked the door blocker, so that it spun off somewhere into the boy's locker room, and hurried back into the bathroom to retrieve the talisman.

_All clear, _the Abjiya reported. _No one suspected anything._

_Thank you, Abjiya, _and she meant it. _I should be able to locate the shulam now, _she thought to herself. _It cannot hide anywhere else but the gym, and I've set the ward to close in on it more and more every day. Then I will have it in one place and finally get rid of it._

She then hurried to put the talisman away in her backpack again and just as hurried, rushed back out to the basketball court. She hadn't known or even suspected, though, that during her ward-setting a player had gotten hurt and was the center of attention by all the club. Even Dajan was taken up by the sudden injury. No wonder no one noticed her.

Oyuun came up to the crowd and pushed her way to the front. When she got there to see who it was, she was duly surprised to find out that it was none other than Castiel.

He was gripping his stomach and twisting his face in such pain that Oyuun at first thought that someone hit him in the stomach with a basketball. But when she reached down to touch his shoulder, just to ask if he were ok, his gray eyes settled on her golden ones and she was suddenly thrown back; literally, with a burst of air, as if a giant wind had pushed her.

Oyuun didn't fall too far, but she did skid on the basketball floor on her behind. At the end, the momentum ceased and she was toppled down onto her back, her head hitting the gymnasium floor a little hard.

_What? _She was very confused. _What the...what just happened?_

The rest of the club were much more mystified than she was. Everyone stared at her in shock for a while before going into an uproar about what happened. Some of them blamed Castiel, but others began blaming each other. Eventually, Dajan had to yell to get them all to be quiet.

Oyuun spoke up before anyone could do anything else. "Uh, I'm ok...Nothing wrong...really, I just...that must have been the air conditioner or something." She stood up and began making her way to them again, this time to see Castiel looking much better. "Let's just forget about it. So, Castiel, are you all right? What happened?"

Castiel looked up at her from his spot on the ground, and then coolly lifted himself up. "My stomach suddenly hurt, that's all. I must've eaten something bad."

Oyuun stared after him as he shrugged his way through the other players, and she couldn't help but sense something...something off..._Why does Castiel feel so strange? _she wondered. _It's almost a__s if...as if the ward affected him somehow. _

"Well," Dajan said with a loud clap to get everyone's attention. "Now that that's settled, everyone should go back to what they were doing. Come on, Oyuun, we'll continue our practicing."

"Coming," Oyuun called to him, but she still stayed rooted to the spot, looking after Castiel's burly form as he made his way to the boy's bathroom. A few seconds later, she moved to join Dajan, but she couldn't help thinking that she'd accidentally started something rather catastrophic.

* * *

Oyuun couldn't believe it, but she actually worked up a sweat when practice was over. Dajan ended up changing plans midway in their drill and got her to do some basic offensive and defensive moves back and forth against him, and considering how he was practically a pro, it was no wonder she became tired. But he was lenient, so though the club was still playing, he excused her early.

"Remember to drink plenty of water, eat well, and get enough sleep," he called after her as she left, parroting their physical ed teachers, "so you can come back with enough energy!"

_I'm certainly not going to forget my sleep, _she thought as she wearily made her way to a bench in the school courtyard. She'd already changed back to her regular clothes and tied her hair back to the way she always did, so no one but the basketball club could've seen her in those ridiculous jersey and shorts. She'd put those into her cubby in the locker room, where she also kept her P.E. clothes and tennis shoes.

But what was more important was that she was wearing her talisman again. The Abjiya was happy to see her as well, as she could tell from the aura that the necklace emanated.

_I should just go home soon, _she thought, _if I'm not going to do anything else...the clubs end in an hour. There's not much of a point in staying. The shulam should be taken care of for now, and-  
_

Someone suddenly settled down to sit next to her, breaking her out of her thoughts. As she turned her head to take a look, she was delighted to see that it was Jade. He had on a friendly smile and a fresh bottle of water in his gloved hand.

"Hey Jade," Oyuun greeted him.

"Hello Oyuun." He pushed the bottle in his hand towards her. "Here, this is for you."

Oyuun blinked at the bottle as she held it in her hands. "What...really? Where did you get it?"

"I got it a moment ago at the vending machine in the cafeteria. I was passing by when I thought, 'Isn't Oyuun practicing in the basketball club now? She'll be thirsty when she finishes.' So I bought it and went back to wait for you. I just didn't think you'd come out early."

Oyuun blushed, unable to believe that someone had really used up some of their own money to get her something, even if it was just a water bottle from a vending machine. Then she realized how imposing that made her seem. "Oh, Jade, I really can't...not without paying you back..."

Jade chuckled lightheartedly. "Relax, it was only a dollar. Think of it as a gift."

"No, I can't do that, that'd be unfair." She began fishing around her backpack for some money. "I have a dollar here, just wait while I get it."

But Jade put a firm hand on her arm, although he withdrew it quickly when he realized that he'd gotten dirt on her sleeve. "It's ok, Oyuun, you don't have to do that. If you want to repay me, though, why don't you come with me right now? I'd like to show you something."

Oyuun stopped and looked right into his green eyes, which she suspected were hiding some kind of surprise. "All right. If it's a favor you want of me, then I'll gladly do it."

Jade smiled. "A little one. Come on. And drink some water as you go; you can't leave yourself dehydrated."

She shouldered her backpack and stood up to follow him. They walked a little ways down the path to the gardening club greenhouse, where Ken appeared to be waiting for them.

"Oyuun!" Ken called out excitedly. "Come look at this!"

Oyuun looked from Ken to Jade and back, but Jade just nodded and nudged her forward. He followed behind her the entire way, and stayed at her back when she reached her destination. That destination turned out to be the corner with the _oboo, _and Oyuun felt herself growing more and more surprised as she stared at the now comely and bigger pile of stones and long tree branches decorated with flowers and vines. Offerings of chip bags lay at the bottom of the _oboo _as well, and she was growing pleased to see that it was looking more like a real _oboo_ than it had before (though it was still below the average height and frankly, still lopsided).

"This is amazing!" she exclaimed.

"The whole gardening club put an effort to it," Ken explained. "We spent some time transferring our vines and flowers onto the branches, but it was worth it! And Oyuun, guess what?"

"What?"

"Some of our members had put out milk here at lunch, and when we came to our club today, it was gone!"

Oyuun's eyes widened at that, and she looked to Jade for an explanation.

Jade shrugged. "I don't know about that, really, but I'd like to think it was the nature spirit."

Oyuun turned back to the _oboo _and walked up to it, searching for a presence. As she put her hand upon the stones, a small pinprick of spiritual energy permeated from within and fell to the range of her senses. _A real gazriin ezen, _she thought. _Very weak and small..but actually here..._When she turned back, a full smile was upon her face.

"This is wonderful!" she exclaimed. "You're doing everything right! And yes, I'd like to believe it was the _gazriin ezen _too."

"It _must _be," Ken insisted.

Oyuun smiled and, remembering the water bottle, opened it and took her first sip. That was when she realized how thirsty she was and ended up emptying the bottle by half.

Jade chuckled. "I told you that you'd need it."

"Thank you, Jade," she said sincerely once she was finished. "And thank you, Ken. It really made my day. Tell you what, keep me updated on the _oboo_'s progress. I'd like to see it grow and house a strong _gazriin ezen_." _The contrast of a good presence versus a bad one, _she thought, _can really help me in locating and preventing more shulam from entering school grounds._

Ken looked as though he were ready to shoot off into the sky. Jade simply nodded.

"All right, I have to go now. See you, guys!"

"See you, Oyuun!" Ken said with a wave.

"See you tomorrow," Jade smiled.

Oyuun turned around and made her way around the greenhouse to get back on the courtyard path. She was so happy, she ended up humming a tune to herself. Luckily no one was around, so the only ones to hear it were the Abjiya and herself.

She was just turning to head back through the school, when suddenly, another presence was felt by her just like that of the _gazriin ezen'_s. But it wasn't a good one. Oyuun paused in her tracks for a moment as she realized it was a _shulam;_ but whether it was the same one from the gymnasium, she couldn't tell. It was clouded with so much hate and negativity that the most she could get from it was that its power level was the same as the one in the gym.

Curious, she walked towards its intimidating aura for a little while until she heard voices.

"...must sign this, Castiel, you cut class again."

"So you're going to try and make me sign it now? What happened to using vulnerable new girls to do it?"

_Castiel and Nathaniel? _Oyuun was confused.

Nathaniel gave a _tsk_. "Last time I tried that, she almost got hurt."

"As if that were my fault," Castiel retorted.

Oyuun frowned. _They're talking about the form I tried to make Castiel sign. And they sound angry. _She tip-toed around the corner until she could see them, facing each other and not looking very happy.

"This is your duty as a legally independent student," Nathaniel stated matter-of-factly. "If I were you, I would have been a man and accepted my responsibilities."

"Same goes for you," Castiel shot back. "I wouldn't have involved a girl in this."

"I didn't force her, she volunteered!"

"Oh, is that so? Didn't she slap you and make you angry?"

"I was slapped, but I wasn't angry. I don't lose my temper, unlike you."

Castiel made a sudden grab for the student body president's collar. "What'd you say?"

"I don't lose my temper," Nathaniel repeated. "Unlike you. Isn't that what happened that day, when the hoop fell?"

"It wasn't me," Castiel stated firmly. "And it wasn't any of the other basketball club members."

"That's hard to believe."

"Damn you," Castiel cursed. "I guess you're itching to see what happens when I'm pissed off?"

"Try it, if you're willing," Nathaniel challenged.

_Oh...Oh no! _Oyuun was shocked. _They're going to fight! _Then she remembered the _shulam _she'd sensed, but when she tried sensing it again it was gone. _Oh, who cares? Something more important is going to happen!_

Castiel was about to throw the first punch, when Oyuun emerged from where she'd been listening.

"Stop it!" she cried, and came in between them; Nathaniel was at her back, and Castiel was right in front of her. The latter nearly punched her, but miraculously swerved in time.

"What the heck!?" he cried out. "Oyuun! What're you doing here? I almost hit you!"

Nathaniel was just as shocked. "O-Oyuun! You could have gotten hurt! Why did you come here?"

Oyuun couldn't even believe what she did herself. "Well what are you doing, accepting a fight?" she countered at Nathaniel. "You're the student body president!"

Nathaniel looked guilty, but didn't back down. "Still, Oyuun, this is something that is between the administration and Castiel."

"Administration, my ass," Castiel swore.

"That kind of language isn't allowed here!" Nathaniel scolded him.

But he might as well have been in vain. Oyuun realized that, too, but she had no time to be chiding them both. There had to be a way to solve the problem without letting them fall back into a fight.

"Listen, Castiel," she entreated him. "You shouldn't cut class anymore. You won't have any papers to sign if you do. And fighting to solve a problem...that's just like smashing a hammer into a TV to fix it. It won't do anything necessary for you."

Castiel's cold gray eyes glared down at hers. "Trying to act the good part, aren't you, Ms. Dyed Hair?"

Oyuun flinched. "My hair is _not _dyed," she said firmly.

"Yeah, well, until you can prove that, stay out of this."

Oyuun couldn't believe how petty he was being. "Castiel, my hair doesn't have anything to do with this! All I'm asking of you is not to fight."

Nathaniel put a hand on her shoulder. "It's ok, Oyuun, I can handle this from here. He'll only try and dissuade you again."

"But, Nathaniel..."

"He told you to go, Butt-saikhan," Castiel interjected. "You should listen to the student body president or you'll get suspended."

Oyuun's own anger flared at Castiel's usage of her hated nickname again. "Maybe _you're_ the one who should listen to him! Me? I'm sick and tired of you calling me by that ridiculous nickname Amber gave me!"

"Oyuun, don't let him get to you," Nathaniel said. "Now, please, just go-"

"Cut me some slack," Castiel said mockingly. "It's a lot easier to pronounce than the real way."

Oyuun almost retorted but held herself back in time. _No, if I get angry too, nothing will be finished. _She took a deep breath and gripped her talisman to regain her composure. "I'm sorry, Abjiya," she said low under her breath. "I almost lost my temper. I won't next time."

Nathaniel and Castiel couldn't have heard what she said, but they did hear her muttering to herself. Castiel gave a smirk and crossed his arms, looking smug. "Yeah, talk to your necklace. That'll sure solve everything."

"Castiel, stop bothering her," Nathaniel ordered.

"Make me." He yawned and turned to leave. "I've got a club to go to now. See if you can stop me then."

Nathaniel stared after him begrudgingly, his eyes frowning at the redhead's back as though he didn't approve. Oyuun, meanwhile, looked up from the talisman and, concentrating her golden eyes on Castiel as well, sensed the same off-beat aura on him just like the one at the gym.

_Again? And this is right after I sensed another shulam..._her brow furrowed as she tried to piece things together. _That shulam was hidden within a lot of negative emotions. And then I stumble upon this fight...but before that, I couldn't find the other shulam in the gym and Castiel got hurt when I set up the ward...could it be?_

Nathaniel sighed and shook his head. "I did my best. There's just no forcing that guy!" He turned to Oyuun and gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Anyway, thanks for stopping the fight, and for reminding me of who I was. I'm sorry to have acted out so uncharacteristically. I must have alarmed you."

But Oyuun didn't even hear him. She rushed after Castiel instead. "Castiel!" she called out. "Wait!"

He whirled around looking annoyed. "What?"

"You..." She paused, for the feeling was suddenly gone. With an exasperated sigh, she said, "Nothing. Just be careful."

Castiel didn't seem very pleased, but he didn't say anything else as he continued on his way back to the basketball club.

_Could it be, _she wondered again, _that Castiel is the one that's haunted?_

* * *

**Footnotes**

*..._yek_... Yek are demons that steal corpses for food.

**..._Eje_... Mongolian word for 'mother'. Pronounced "EH-jee", with a very light emphasis on the "jee".

***..._okhin..._ Mongolian word for 'daughter'. Pronounced "OH-kh-een"

+..._Aav..._ Mongolian word for father. I think it is pronounced "AH-v"?


	4. Revenge?

Sorry for taking so long, everybody! Here's the next chapter!

* * *

**Revenge?  
**

* * *

_Silent footsteps...__A sharp blade...__Thundering hoof beats...__Burning sheepskin...__Blood..._

_"Mother!"_

Oyuun gasped and shot up on the bed, panting heavily and breaking out in a cold sweat. Her hands trembled as she tried to wipe at her forehead. Deep inside her belly burned the horrible feeling of fear. That dream, that nightmare, it felt so real...She had not gone into the Dream World tonight, which was normal since lessons with the Abjiya occurred from every other day to every few days. But the dream that she had was one of ancient Mongolia.

_Why would I have such a dream? _she wondered. _A tribal raid, too..._

There was no mistaking the flurry of armed horsemen and mounted archers setting fire to almost every yurt in the close-knit community. Oyuun had dreamt the raid through another man's eyes, watching as he frantically ran away from his pursuers and hid in his own yurt with his mother. But someone had been waiting inside beforehand to ambush them, and their knife glinted in the distant firelight. Eventually, the raiders outside caught up to them and set fire to the yurt they were in. Then the chased man sat helpless, cradling his bleeding mother and watching as her killer dropped his knife and fled the burning yurt.

And then...

_I think he died, _Oyuun concluded. _Everything turned black after that. __But who is he? And why would I have this dream?_

She shook her head and ran a shaky hand through her snow white hair. She tried to close her eyes again, to try and regain her sleep, but the persistent fear within her kept her from doing so. She had not only dreamed the scene through the man's eyes, but his emotions also. Every panicked heartbeat he felt echoed again in her own chest, every tendril of smoke he breathed clouded her own lungs, and every single tear he shed fell from her own eyes...

_Oh, I was crying too, _Oyuun realized as she touched the rim of her eyes. They were wet and hot as though she had really cried her heart out, and her cheeks were streaked with their tears.

She looked over to the clock on her nightstand to see what time it was. Her eyes were still blurry at first but after a moment of focusing, the time clearly showed itself to be five in the morning.

_Eje and Aav will wake up in another thirty minutes, _Oyuun thought, _while I don't normally wake up until an hour later. But I can't go back to sleep. That dream really scared me. _

Oyuun threw the blanket off her and slid off the bed, resolving to just wake up and start the day a little early. She didn't feel like going back to sleep, not after such a horrible nightmare.

After she finished making her bed, the young shaman tip-toed out her room and across the hallway to the bathroom that she used for herself. Her parents had their own in the master bedroom, but even so, she didn't want to wake them up with her footsteps. She hurriedly brushed her teeth and washed her face so that she could go back to her room and dress up for the day.

Eventually, Oyuun had gotten herself all nice and ready, minus the tied hair. But before she could get to that, she looked at the time again and realized it was only 5:19. What would she do until then? Usually, when she woke up at six, her mother would already have breakfast done for her and all she'd needed to do was eat it with her parents, wash the dishes, watch some TV with her father, and then walk to school at seven.

_Hmm. I can't do anything much without waking Eje and Aav up too early. So..._ She glanced all about her room, darkened by the bleak morning sky and shuttered blinds. Eventually, as her eyes wandered towards the back of her room, the mounted taxidermy wood owl perched atop her shelf, which also served as the spirit house of her owl spirit helper, Bataar, almost seemed to blink its wide yellow eyes at her the longer she stared. The normally motionless owl then started to fidget and rustle until Oyuun gave in and called the spirit helper within out to her.

A translucent wood owl emerged from the taxidermy mount and landed on her shoulder. A normal person wouldn't have seen it, as it was a spirit, but then again Oyuun wasn't normal.

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted. "Oyuun! Up early?"

"Yes, Bataar," Oyuun answered. "What is it that you want?"

Bataar shifted from foot to foot on the young shaman girl's shoulder. "You know what we should do! Hoo! You can't leave it undone!"

Oyuun thought that maybe he was referencing to the _shulam _that she'd found at her school. She'd told him about it, and also to Shria and Qara; after all, they were her three most powerful helpers; but then she remembered that they couldn't do much about it because her parents forbade her to bring them to school.

"What is it?" she then asked him.

"Hoo! You moved here but you never bothered to explore the town. We should take this opportunity, hoo!"

Oyuun thought about it for a moment. Well, she did need a walk to clear her head of that nightmare. Her house wasn't so far from the town, either; otherwise, how could she manage to walk to school every morning? Also, her parents wouldn't be angry. She was fifteen now and rarely went places, which kind of bothered them. And besides, she'd always wanted to spy a coming sunrise on her own one day. So, maybe today would be that day.

"All right," she agreed, "tell Shria and Qara about it. We'll all go together."

Bataar flapped around most gratefully before flying straight through her closed door. He was going to her _sheree _next to the family's _hoimor, _where Shria and Qara's skins were. A spirit helper's spirit house was usually the animal's full skin that it'd worn in life. In Bataar's case, since birds can't be skinned, it was his stuffed body. A traditional shaman would have worn the skins on his or her robes, literally carrying their helpers everywhere they went, but Oyuun couldn't afford to do that out in public. Instead, she'd plucked a little fur from Shria and Qara and three feathers from Bataar, and strung those on a bracelet. That way, she could just wear it on her wrist and still bring her spirit helpers along without looking ridiculous. Oyuun had other similar bracelets for four other spirit helpers as well, but the one she put on more frequently was the Shria-Qara-Bataar one.

When Bataar entered the room again with a sprightly little Mongolian red fox spirit and a stoic black wolf spirit, Oyuun had already put her bracelet on, linking them now to her wherever she went. She hadn't bothered putting on the Abjiya's talisman because where she was going, she'd still be close to home.

"Ooh, we get to explore, explore!" Shria, the red fox, exclaimed excitedly.

"I wonder if we'll run into _shulam _in town," Qara, the black wolf, muttered.

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted. "We must go!"

"Wait," Oyuun entreated them, and went to fetch some paper and a pen. "I'll leave _Eje _and _Aav _a note telling where I went. I don't want them to wake up looking for me."

She then sat down at her desk to write a quick message. _Woke up at five. Couldn't sleep. Walking around town; will be back for quick breakfast. Oyuunchimeg._

"There," she said, and presented the note to her spirit helpers. "I'm just going to put it on their nightstand and then we'll go."

Oyuun hurried out her door and sneaked into her parent's bedroom, where they were still asleep. They would wake up in another ten minutes or so, but she'd be out of the house before then. So, as carefully as possible, the young shaman laid the note face up on their nightstand and tip-toed out.

"Ok guys," she told her spirit helpers when she returned. She grabbed her satchel and slung it across her shoulders. "I got it done. Let's go!"

* * *

The walk to town was, as predicted, short and quick. But it was totally worth it. Oyuun got to see what her side of the town looked like, even though most of the stores weren't open yet. There were people, either jogging or walking or setting up shop, so Oyuun wasn't physically alone. And best of all, the sunrise was about to come...

"I don't know about you," she remarked to her helpers in Mongolian, "but I'm eager to see the dawn come."

"We've seen dawn plenty of times!" Shria said.

"It's no news to us," Qara added.

"Hoo! I sleep at dawn!" Bataar exclaimed, and flew over to perch on her other shoulder. "Well, only when I was alive."

_Party-poopers, _Oyuun thought bemusedly. She ignored them and relished in the cool morning wind that blew through her long, waist length hair. She'd purposefully left it untied before she left the house because she was afraid tying it would take up too much time and make her miss the sunrise. So for once, she was out in public with her hair fully let down.

The young shaman began walking a little ways down the street to find a good place to watch the dawn. The buildings weren't too tall, so the sky was still visible from where she was viewing it. She was just walking when a strange man opened the door to his shop and surprised her.

The thing that surprised her about this man was that he was dressed in complete Victorian fashion. His hair was elegantly combed and his clothes were neatly smoothed out, betraying a luxurious grace. Oyuun felt confused, for that strange encounter almost made her think that a real Victorian era gentleman had literally escaped from the past. She stood frozen to the spot, her golden eyes transfixed upon the man, and her mind wondering whether she was seeing things or not.

"Good morning, young lady," the man remarked in a suave voice when he noticed her staring. He bowed politely before her and smiled. "We are closed but will soon open within a few hours. I'm only stepping out to retrieve some supplies, so please do not misunderstand."

Oyuun stared at the Victorian man for a while, and then up at the shop's sign: _Ainsworth Clothing Shoppe. _Mannequins wearing fancy clothes were set up in display at the window, visible to whoever looked in. She then turned to him and tried to respond as normally as possible, "Oh, uh, good morning. What kind of clothes do you sell?"

The man just continued smiling. "We have just about everything that should fit a young girl's fancy, but we also do custom made-to-order Victorian costumes as well."

_That sounds expensive. _"I guess I'll go check it out after school today."

"My pleasure." The man looked at her curiously for a moment, before asking, "Are you a Sweet Amoris student, by any chance?"

Qara gestured for Oyuun to wait before replying and stepped tentatively forward to take a sniff at the man. "Oyuun," the wolf remarked, "he has a relative that attends your school. I think that relative has told him about you." That was Qara's specialty; finding out the thoughts in what other people said and sensing the emotions that poured out from their hearts, as well as the kinds of spirits they housed.

Oyuun looked down at where Qara was standing, though to the man it looked like she was just glancing briefly down at the pavement. She looked up again and said, "Yes, I am. How did you know?"

"Just a guess."

"Do you have family going there too?" Oyuun asked him, thinking of Qara's discovery.

The man looked shocked. "Why...yes, how did _you _know? Or have you already met Lysander?"

"Just a guess," Oyuun said, parroting his words.

He seemed thoughtful for a moment, before shrugging and saying goodbye. "Well, have a nice day, young lady. Do be sure to come by some time." Then he left, and so did Oyuun, with Shria and Qara in tow.

"I don't think I've met anyone at our school with the last name 'Ainsworth' before," Oyuun remarked as she walked. "How could his relative have known about me?"

Qara seemed confident as he answered. "He's probably seen you, one way or another. Or someone has told him about you. That Iris girl, or Castiel, or maybe even Amber."

_Oh yeah, _Oyuun thought, _he must've seen the pictures Amber put up. No wonder he told his relative. Ugh, they must've laughed about it...  
_

Shria sensed Oyuun's displeasure and sprang happily around her feet in circles. "Come on Oyuun, forget about the negativity! Let's just enjoy ourselves now. The sunrise is coming, you know!"

Oyuun sighed. "Yes, thank you, Shria."

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted. "School sounds horrible for you, Oyuun! Wish we could come with you."

"But that wouldn't make things any better," Oyuun pointed out. "You guys are going to get me in trouble, especially you, Shria. No offense."

"None taken," Shria returned, "because you're right. Hmph, if I were there before that pompous Amber put up those pictures, I'd have given her a good beating."

Qara snorted in disdain. "You can be so petty sometimes. That blonde fool isn't worth all that energy."

Oyuun laughed at Qara's statement. "You got _that _right."

Oyuun had been so taken up in her conversation with her spirit helpers that she didn't notice someone's voice screaming in the distance. "Demon!" the person had yelled. A little while later, "Demon!" After another few seconds, "Demon!" And then, much closer, "DEMON, GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"

_Demon? _Oyuun whirled around and turned her head left and right; in her surprise, she'd forgotten that there was no way a normal person would have been able to see a demon to warn about one. Shria and Bataar seemed caught up in the times like their shaman master did, too, but Qara knew the truth, as his continuous stoic composure belied.

"Demon? Where, where?" Shria shrieked.

Bataar hopped up and down on Oyuun's shoulder. "Demons in the town! Demons in the town!"

But they were soon proved wrong when Qara suddenly leapt in front of Oyuun in a defensive stance. "Stand back!" he ordered to his shaman master, and she had not the time to register things when a very big brown dog with its leash trailing after it emerged from around the corner and came snout-to-snout with a very angry Qara. The dog seemed surprised at first but quickly recovered and began to snarl and bark at Qara, who growled and bared his fangs.

Some people were beginning to notice the commotion and looked away from whatever they were doing to see what was going on. They couldn't see Qara, so all they witnessed was the strange dog barking aggressively at Oyuun at a few feet's distance. The staring made her feel awkward as well as rushed, so she tried to coax Qara. "Peace!" she demanded in Mongolian. "Qara, make peace!"

Qara whirled his head around to give Oyuun an incredulous expression, but turned back to the dog to negotiate with him in the incorrigible canine language.

The dog's owner soon showed up, though, and grabbed at its leash with enraged ferocity. "Demon, you bad boy!" he scolded. Demon, who turned out to be the dog, whimpered and cowered at his owner's feet. He was swatted in the behind several times as punishment, but that seemed almost enough to make him pee himself.

"Sorry for this," his owner apologized while rising up to meet the girl Demon scared. "Demon's not usually mean to people."

Oyuun would have answered with the typical, "Oh it's ok, I'm fine," but a lump in her throat stayed her words. And that was because...

...Demon's owner turned out to be Castiel.

The redhead's gray eyes widened as he recognized the white haired shaman girl he kept making fun of at school. "Oyuun?"

Qara, Shria, and Bataar all looked to their shaman master. Oyuun saw their eyes on her, but tried to ignore them as she answered, "Er, Castiel...hi..." At that same moment, a flash from her nightmare suddenly came in between her eyes. She frowned, but tried to push it away, thinking that maybe it was just a bit of sleepiness that made her remember it.

Castiel kept staring at her until Demon started wagging his tail and pulling against the leash, apparently noticing Oyuun for the first time. When the redhead saw her draw back a step, he assured her, "Don't worry, Demon wants to make friends with you now."

_...wants to make friends? _Oyuun couldn't believe that such innocent words were coming from the mouth of a punk who'd just picked a fight the other day. And yet, she still felt a little edgy around Demon. In fact, she was edgy around most dogs, because of the reactions they had towards her spirit helpers and her spiritual energy. That was because dogs, like other animals, could sense things most humans couldn't; but unlike other animals, dogs would quickly resort to violence and aggression to deal with such things.

"It's fine," Qara reassured her, "he's nice now. I talked with him already."

Oyuun looked warily from Demon to Qara, but swallowed her fear and held out a tentative hand. "H-hello, Demon...I'm Oyuun."

The Belgian shepherd eagerly sniffed her hand and gave it a big lick.

Oyuun wanted to squeal when she felt the slimy tongue connect with her skin, but put on her bravest face possible. "Aw, what a sweet boy...boy, right?"

Castiel nodded.

"What kind?" she asked.

"Belgian Shepherd."

When that was done, Oyuun straightened herself up and met with Castiel's indiscernible scowl. She was also trying her best to put the fight of the other day behind her, as well as his petty insults. "So, Castiel...you walk your dog this early in the morning?"

"I always do before I head to school."

"Do you walk to school?" she asked.

"No, I drive."

"Whoa!" Oyuun couldn't help but exclaim. "You can drive?"

"Of course I can. I'm sixteen now."

_Oh, _Oyuun thought. _He's a year older than me, _her mind involuntarily added.

"What're _you_ doing out here?" Castiel asked rather frankly. "Catching the wind in your hair?" he added, gesturing towards her untied hair.

Oyuun grabbed defensively at a lock of her hair and blushed a deep red. "Uh...um...well, I was just taking a morning walk...and I think I _may _have forgotten to tie my hair..." Her golden eyes darted frantically as if in search of an excuse to get out of the conversation. But they widened as she noticed the brightening sky behind Castiel. "Oh, oh!" she exclaimed, pointing behind him. "Shria, Qara, Bataar, look, the sun, it's rising!"

The three animal spirits all turned their heads in the direction that their shaman master was pointing, and true enough, a golden ball of light was making its way up in the sky.

Castiel couldn't understand, because she'd said that in Mongolian. He turned around to look at what she was pointing to and then turned back, his expressionless face betraying nothing of what he thought about it. "Assuming you didn't just insult me in another language," he began calmly.

Oyuun noticed him again and blushed in embarrassment. "Uh, sorry, I didn't...um, I was just...I got excited."

"About what?"

Her mouth became a taut line as she contemplated whether she should tell him or not. _But he would just make fun of me again, and if he tells other students at school..._ "Forget about it," she said at last. "You wouldn't understand."

Castiel shrugged. "Whatever. I have to get on with my walk now."

Oyuun sighed in relief. Talking to Castiel was always a bit of a pain in the butt, especially when he made that stern face of his. It made her feel as though she weren't being taken seriously, and that her words meant nothing to him. Yet when he _did _smile...it was to mock her. Thank goodness he was leaving now.

"Unless you want to join?" he suddenly added.

Oyuun blinked, taken aback by this sudden offer. "Aren't you still angry with me for interrupting your fight?" she asked rather bluntly.

Castiel frowned. "Why would I hold a grudge against a girl?"

"But I annoyed you yesterday," she insisted. "Didn't I?"

"Not as much as Nat. You weren't the one that started it, you know."

_What...what is this new side of him? _Oyuun could hardly believe how rational he was being. Then again, Castiel wasn't _always _an angry raging bull in a china shop. So maybe she had underestimated him a little too much.

"I was just asking 'cause we're both out on a walk," he explained when she didn't say anything. "There's also something I wanted to talk to you about."

Oyuun frowned. "What is it?"

"Just come with me." Castiel turned around and tugged on the leash for Demon to follow.

The shaman girl looked to Qara for advice, but the black wolf was already padding ahead after Demon. Shria bounded off after them and Bataar just flapped his wings as he adjusted his position on Oyuun's shoulder. _I guess it's ok, _Oyuun thought, not really bothering to ask the spirits. _They're following without much trouble. But I wonder if Qara or at least Shria has sensed something about Castiel? Yesterday, I got such strange vibes from him..._

Oyuun followed last, taking short and tentative steps. Her thoughts became entangled around Castiel's strange behavior, and what he possibly would want with her at the moment. Then there was also the _shulam _and offbeat aura sensed around him when he became angry at Nathaniel. And the fact that he was hurt when she put up a ward...

"Want some coffee?" he asked as they passed by a Starbucks cafe.

Oyuun snapped out of her thoughts and noticed the cafe for the first time. "Oh, uh, no thanks. I'm good. Do you want me to get you one?"

Castiel shook his head and simply tied Demon to a fire hydrant. "I'll get it myself. Just watch over Demon for me." Then he entered the cafe and left Oyuun alone with his big Belgian shepherd and her three spirit helpers.

Qara sat near the fire hydrant, losing himself in conversation with Demon. Shria came up to Oyuun, however, and whispered out to her.

"Psst," Shria hissed.

"Yes, Shria?" Oyuun asked.

"This guy, Oyuun; is he that redhead that keeps calling you Butt-"

But Shria couldn't finish, because Oyuun interrupted her out of embarrassment. "Yes, that's him."

"Why's he so nice to you all of a sudden?"

"I don't know," Oyuun answered worriedly. "But I think he wants to talk about something important. At least, that's what it feels like. If anything happens, though, I'll start running and yelling."

Shria nodded and moved back to sit near Qara. That seemed to comfort her, although Oyuun wouldn't really need to take such drastic measures if anything serious happened. She had her spirit helpers as well as the people of the town, and her cell phone was right beside her in her satchel. Shria was just a little excitable and needed extra reassurance to keep from going completely rabid with worry, that was all.

Castiel exited the Starbucks with a hot cup of coffee after making Oyuun wait five minutes or so. Then, taking up Demon's leash in his free hand, he continued the walk. After taking a few sips he began the conversation. "Do you remember yesterday, when I got my stomachache?"

Oyuun nodded.

"And then you touched my shoulder and got blown back."

She cringed. "Yes, well, I couldn't understand that either..."

Castiel took a thoughtful sip and kept on looking ahead. "Then there's that time when you tried to get me to sign the absentee form and a hoop nearly fell on you."

Oyuun's golden eyes gave Castiel a sidelong glance. _He didn't mention the basketball I got hit with. He still thinks someone else threw that at me. _"What's your point?"

"...I don't know," he answered honestly. "I just think it's weird. I thought that maybe you'd know something about it. It's been bothering me ever since the hoop incident. I didn't say anything yesterday only because I was planning on leaving it at that...but then something strange happened again, and you get the point."

_Actually, I do know about it, _she thought. _Not everything but enough to know what's happening. _She turned to look at him again. _The only thing I can't grasp is, are you haunted or not? _"Why would I know anything of that sort?" she said after a while. "I'm no psychic and I'm not superstitious. What's happened was just coincidence, even if it was a little strange." _Ugh, I hate lying._

Castiel drank some more of his coffee. "I'm not the type to believe in those things either," he agreed. "I guess it was just a moment of doubt that made me ask." He saw from the corner of his gray eyes a skeptical look planted on Oyuun's features. "What's with that face? I would have asked you at school anyways. But now that that's done, forget I ever said anything, ok?"

_Afraid it'll ruin your reputation? _Oyuun asked sarcastically. But she nodded. "Ok, if that's what you want."

He nodded back and then gave a sharp tug on Demon's leash. "See you at school," he said as he was walking away.

"That was quick," she remarked.

"I don't like to prolong things," Castiel explained, "especially when I'm the one in doubt."

"Yeah, ok, see you," she returned. She watched him leave for a few seconds and then went back through their previous line of travel, intent on going home this time.

But her conversation with Castiel had become heavily imprinted within her mind. Had she not met him in town today and waited to see him at school, he still would have asked her as he had implied before. But it was just unsettling to have an outsider become knowledgeably involved in the spiritual business, even if he knew nothing as of yet. Oyuun decided that she'd have to be more careful, and that she was lucky no _shulam _had come in between them like before.

_Shulam can be hidden in people's hearts, _she thought, _as well as other demons. The thing is, he gives off strange aura and a menacing presence is only felt when he's angry or just plain unhappy. Or maybe feeling pain, like when he hurt his stomach. It all leads to him being haunted, but how do I know without any tangible proof? I felt nothing while talking to him back there..._

"What are you worrying about, Oyuun?" Qara asked, speaking to her for the first time since Castiel went into Starbucks.

"Something..." She frowned. "It's something that should be left to Abjiya," she concluded.

Qara nodded stoically. "Fine. But Oyuun, I should tell you about that red haired boy..."

"What is it?"

"He is surrounded by negative energy," Qara explained. "It is based on the fundamentals of human emotion...anger, hatred, sadness, wounded pride...so it's not your fault you can't sense it. You're a human too. But you know what feeds off of these kinds of energy, Oyuun."

Oyuun knew. "Ghosts, demons..._shulam_..."

Qara nodded. "And the fact that there is a _shulam _at your school already will mean trouble. Don't associate yourself with this boy too much, Oyuun...it won't be good for you in the end."

Shria shivered. "He was only nice to you so he could get the reassurance he needed...how selfish."

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted. "No comment."

But Oyuun didn't care about whether Castiel was steeped in negative emotions or using her or whatever her spirit helpers were thinking. Her thoughts were centered on the _shulam, _and whether or not there really were two or one; and whether or not it was the school or Castiel that was haunted.

_But hey, _her inner thoughts suddenly remarked. _I just noticed. The entire time Castiel and I talked...he didn't call me Butt-saikhan._

And it was nice, for a change.

* * *

Oyuun came to school later that morning, her hair now tied and her mind still thinking over the conversation she had with Castiel. It was now vital that nothing strange happened between them again or people would start talking. Castiel wouldn't tell anybody, but a whole bunch of basketball club members might, not including Dajan.

On the other hand, Castiel skipped class again and Oyuun could already imagine the trouble Nathaniel would have with him all once more.

And then, at lunchtime, Amber struck her next blow. Oyuun hadn't counted on it, because the previous few days since the photo ID prank had been rather peaceful (if one didn't count the stares and secret teasing that went on behind one's back). It was a Friday, too, just a day short of the oncoming weekend...so like everyone else, Oyuun had believed everything to be smooth sailing ahead.

She had taken her lunch in the courtyard again, but not so she could be aware of demonic presences like last time. She wanted peace and quiet and to be able to confirm that her ward on the gym was closing in on the _shulam_ like she wanted it to. When she was satisfied, she settled down on a bench and enjoyed the quiet air as well as possible. Few students ate out here, unlike in the crowded cafeteria, making it the ideal place.

Oyuun was just in the process of finishing up her lunch when a dark shadow loomed over her. She stopped eating and turned around to see who it was.

"Well, look who's eating out here," Amber greeted her with a thin smile. "I wonder what's wrong with using the cafeteria, like normal people?"

Oyuun crumpled the empty paper bag that had held her food and quickly withdrew off the bench to put some distance between her and Amber. Li and Charlotte appeared to be with her, making the situation twice as bad. They both laughed at the Mongolian girl's hasty movements, enjoying every bit of her nervousness.

"What do you want this time?" Oyuun asked defensively.

"Nothing much," Amber said lightly. She twirled a piece of her golden hair while casting her sea blue eyes vaguely in another direction. "Except to teach you a little lesson."

_What lesson? _Oyuun thought exasperatedly. She looked around to see if other people were present to call for help, especially school faculty, but just was her luck when she found that the courtyard was completely empty. "I never did anything to you," she protested. "It was you who-"

Amber snapped a finger, and Li and Charlotte hastened over from their spots to grab Oyuun's arms.

She had to admit, they were quite the agile duo. But the one thing she regretted was that the Abjiya's talisman was left at home..._I forgot to bring it because of that walk this morning, _she thought in distaste.

Oyuun tried to struggle against their grip as the alternative way, but their hands were clasped tight around her arms and their long painted fingernails dug sharply into her sleeves, inflicting pain on her skin. Eventually, she gave up and watched as Amber sauntered over with a smirk on her face.

"I wonder how it feels like, craving attention from the boys so badly that you'd join a boy-only club," the blonde began.

"The basketball club wasn't restricted to _'boys only'_!" Oyuun argued. "And anyway, what's it to you if I did join such a club?"

Li slapped her cheek, or rather, her insolence. "Quiet," she ordered.

"Don't play dumb with us, Butt-saikhan," said Amber. "Only a sore loser like you would cheat on your four-eyed boyfriend for the whole of the basketball club. Or is it...for Castiel?"

_Casti...!? _"What? Why would I...I don't like him that way!" _How could she construe something so absurd?_

"That's not what it looks like," Amber insisted. "You're such an attention whore, you know, getting a hoop to fall down and knowing Castiel would push you out of the way. Then you sign up for the same club and pretend to fall back on yourself so he could notice you."

Oyuun was incredulous at how warped Amber's version of the events had become. She also knew that the blonde was missing a few key details, like how the hoop couldn't have been pushed by one person standing opposite to it and that Castiel was hurt at the same time she was blown away, or 'fallen back on herself'.

"What should we do now, Amber?" Charlotte asked.

"Take something?" Li suggested, pointing to her victim's satchel on the bench.

_Seems like I'm getting off lightly, _Oyuun thought sarcastically. Though she still felt stupid for leaving her own satchel there in her moment of haste.

"Good idea," Amber agreed, and walked over to the bench. Her manicured nails dug into the depths of the satchel as she grabbed it and fished inside for anything to take. Oyuun wanted to break out of Li and Charlotte's grasp and snatch her own satchel back from the pilfering diva...but knew she couldn't and just watched powerless from where she was held.

Amber finished and held out a crisp, ten dollar bill between her thumb and index fingers. She looked smug, especially since she'd probably known by then that that was all of Oyuun's allowance, and proceeded to take the extra coins. Then she flung the satchel away, not bothering to search any further.

"That should be good for now," Amber implied as she put the money away. "Our little lesson has already served its purpose. Let's go, girls."

Li and Charlotte let go of Oyuun, who immediately ran up to her satchel to see if anything else was missing. _Only the money is missing, _she realized. _But still, that was ALL the money I had!_

"You don't have to worry," Amber said as she watched Oyuun. "Most of the stuff in there was too boring for me. Thanks for the money, though!" Then she and her two cronies burst out laughing triumphantly.

The shaman girl glared at the three of them. _Nathaniel will hear about this, _she vowed. But she didn't dare say it; she knew that if she did, they would only cause more trouble for her. So she stood and waited for them to leave, giggling and gossiping about their latest victory. They disappeared back into the school building, so Oyuun had to wait a while before she reentered, in order to avoid bumping into them again.

While she sat on the same bench waiting, another shadow loomed over her that nearly made her punch out, thinking it was Amber. But it wasn't; when Oyuun looked up, she saw a girl standing and smiling over her. Her memory began searching for who it was, and the one thing that helped was the girl's gentle brown hair with the bangs tipped in pink.

_What was her name again? _Oyuun wondered. _I think it was something French..._

The girl smiled some more and finally spoke. "I don't think we've talked a lot," she began. Her voice was soft and slightly raspy, but in the pleasant way. "But you _are _in my class."

Oyuun didn't say anything, as she was still figuring out who the girl was, and what she wanted.

The girl proceeded to sit down next to her and continued giving her that coy smile. "I'm Capucine Durant...and you must be Oyuun Batsaikhan."

"Yes, that's me."

Capucine gave a little giggle. "I knew it."

"So, Capucine," Oyuun started, getting to the point, "you must have seen what Amber did." _After all, she appeared not too long after Amber took the money from me. I also didn't hear the courtyard entrance open during that time, so she must have come from somewhere around here._

Capucine's emerald green eyes glittered knowingly. "Yes. Amber told me about you before, so that's how I knew you when I saw you."

Oyuun raised an eyebrow. "You...you're friends with her?"

"Not friends. Acquaintances, rather. But we do talk."

_Uh-oh, _Oyuun thought, warning herself. _Tread carefully in this. _"I see. So then, why are you talking to me?"

"Do you want to know why she did this?" Capucine suddenly asked.

Oyuun was taken aback for a moment, but then relented. "Do _you _know?"

That coy smile made its way on the French girl's lips again. "Well, you see...Amber has a crush...on Castiel."

_Whoa! _was all Oyuun could think.

"You haven't known her for as long as some people do," Capucine continued. "She's had this crush since kindergarten. That's why she got angry when she found out you joined the basketball club."

"But there's no reason to point fingers at me," Oyuun argued. "I mean, I don't do anything that would hint at that sort of relationship. It would make sense if maybe he and I talked on a friendly level, but trust me, we don't."

"Maybe," Capucine agreed. "But remember that Amber brought up some...choice events that happened between you two."

"That's hardly..."

"Castiel talked especially about the hoop," interrupted Capucine. "He was very concerned about you. You weren't there, so you didn't see Amber's face...she was furious..."

That made Oyuun remember Iris' warning when joining the basketball club. She did mention Castiel talking about the fallen hoop at lunch when Oyuun was out investigating school grounds. _It was probably that day, _she deduced.

Still, she could hardly believe what she was hearing. _Amber is mad at me...all because of that? Would she have preferred Castiel standing by while I got crushed by the hoop? Gods, just because he helped me doesn't mean he likes me or I like him...Why is she being so petty?_

"Jealousy is a terrible thing," the other girl remarked after a moment of silence.

The way things were, Oyuun had to agree.

"That's all I can tell you for now," Capucine concluded. "It was nice speaking to you." She lifted her petite form off the bench, brushing at her pink dress ever-so-delicately. Oyuun stood up as well, as the time was now right to go see Nathaniel. But Capucine seemed to have more to say. "Oh, wait, Oyuun..."

"Yes?"

"Before you go. It's too late to change your club now, but I wouldn't give Amber any more reasons to become jealous...if you know what I mean."

"I already know that," Oyuun grumbled.

"Trying to change her mind is also out of the question," Capucine said rather mysteriously before she moved to go back into the school building.

"Wait," Oyuun called out as Capucine was walking. "You still didn't answer my question...why did you talk to me?"

That managed to stop Capucine, and she turned her head towards Oyuun. "I try to be friends with everyone," she supposed with a shrug.

Then, the bell rang.

* * *

Nathaniel was surprised when Oyuun came into the student body council room looking very sour. He had been taking his lunch there with the other student body council members, and was also preparing to go to the next class.

"Um, excuse me," he told the other council members, "I have some business to take care of. You all may leave for class now."

They did, and that left Oyuun and Nathaniel to talk.

"So," Nathaniel started, "what brings you here? Class is starting soon."

Oyuun huffed. "I know. But there's something I have to tell you about your sister."

"Ah, Amber..." Nathaniel looked a little perplexed. "She's been acting up ever since she said she wanted to go out with Castiel."

Oyuun decided not to be surprised that he knew as well. Amber didn't exactly seem like the subtle sneaky type, anyways. "Well, it does have something to do with Castiel...she's angry with me for joining the basketball club because she thinks I joined for him."

Nathaniel folded his hands politely on his clipboard. "Go on."

"She used Li and Charlotte to hold me back while she pilfered my money!" Oyuun blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. "Just now, right out in the courtyard! I thought she'd at least learn her lesson when you and Principal Shermansky-"

"Calm down," Nathaniel coaxed, and settled a hand on her shoulder. "What's this about Shermansky?"

"That time when Amber put up those ruined photo IDs," Oyuun reminded him. "Both you and Shermansky reprimanded her. Remember?"

Nathaniel frowned. "What? Shermansky didn't have anything to do with it."

"Then why did I hear..."

"That must have been a mistake," Nathaniel quipped. "Only I was there to take care of her. I told her that I would let it slide, since it was the beginning of the year, but I would give her a warning if it happened again_, _and then if there was another instance, I'd take it up with Shermansky for a suspension."

_He...let...it...SLIDE? _Oyuun could hardly believe what she was hearing. "How could you be so lenient with her? No, wait, what will you do now?"

Nathaniel put a hand in his pocket and took out some bills. "How much did she take from you?"

Oyuun pushed his money-holding hand away. "That's not the problem anymore! What will you do to her now that you know what she's done?"

The student body president's brown eyes settled upon hers, and he looked almost...annoyed. "I would give her a warning, like I said if something were to happen a second time. I will seek her out later to do that, but right now I must compensate you for what she took."

"And Li and Charlotte?"

"They didn't exactly hurt you, so they would get a warning as well. This is the first time they've ever done anything physical to anybody, after all."

_But...but..._ "Didn't you know that the three of them took money from Ken too?" she asked desperately.

"That is unproven," Nathaniel refuted, "because Kentin did not come up to report it."

Oyuun was outraged. "What kind of school is this? Don't you realize Amber and her friends will keep on bullying me and Ken even with a warning?"

"Then the suspension will come on the third strike." Nathaniel began counting the bills in his hand. "Now tell me, how much did they take from you?"

_Why...you're just...ugh! _"Forget the money," Oyuun spat, and stormed out of the student council room to go to class.

* * *

Later in study hall, Oyuun sat in a circle of desks with Iris, Jade, and Ken, still feeling glum and angry. Since she'd done her homework already, she pulled out a notebook and began to doodle. But those doodles became more and more violent. Iris noticed her agitation and asked her gently about it.

"Amber took some money from me," the shaman girl explained, "and Nathaniel won't do anything about it except 'give her a warning'."

"Didn't he try to compensate you?" Iris asked.

"He did, but I refused." Oyuun pushed away from the desk and slapped the notebook shut. "What I wanted was something that would be sure to keep Amber from bullying me, or anybody else for that matter, again." Her golden eyes met Ken. "And Ken...why didn't you report Amber to Nathaniel or the administration when she took your money?"

Ken bent his head. "I...I...Oyuun, it's...well, if I did, she'd only...she'd only bully me worse..."

"She could have gotten a suspension today if you did!" Oyuun argued.

"But even if she got a suspension," Ken protested weakly, "she'd still come back to get us..."

"Ken is right," Jade put in. "Nothing is going to stop Amber except for expulsion, and even then she'd still be up to her tricks at a new school."

"Then what?" Oyuun asked. "What will stop her, short of bullying her back, which I think is impossible because she not only has Li and Charlotte, she's got Nathaniel as a brother."

"Simple, Butt-saikhan," an assertive voice proclaimed. "Revenge."

A scrape of wood on the floor indicated that someone was moving their desk to the join the circle, and the person moving said desk was Castiel.

"Revenge?" Oyuun echoed.

"Yes, of course," Iris agreed. "Look, Oyuun, we're not asking you to do anything illegal," she hurriedly said, "but there's got to be a way you can get level with her that will show her what you really mean."

"Amber won't dare do anything against someone who's got the upper hand over her," Jade remarked.

"Revenge doesn't sound like the best way," Oyuun argued. "I was thinking of something more administration-wise."

Castiel looked like he was ready to laugh in her face. "Pff, the administration! Now that's funny!"

Oyuun frowned. "It's better than taking revenge, right Ken?"

Ken fidgeted. "I don't know, Oyuun...I feel kind of vengeful myself...But that doesn't mean I don't agree with you," he quickly added.

"Look, Butt-saikhan," Castiel advised, "the administration isn't going to do _anything_. Shermansky only gets visits from students when they've been reported by teachers, not other students. And Nat is too blinded by brotherly love to see how much of a pain Amber is. The only thing left is for you to take it up in your own hands."

Oyuun still didn't feel good about taking revenge. And what was Castiel doing in helping her? Amber wasn't present in the room to have seen them as a study group, but Capucine was and her words as well as Qara's warning echoed in her mind. "What's it to you anyway?" Oyuun asked the redhead. "You didn't exactly need to come over and suddenly grace me with advice. I don't remember you being this generous."

"You should be lucky that I'm being generous. Would you prefer it if I just stood by and watched you get pushed around?"

Oyuun frowned. "You're only doing this to find a way to get at Nathaniel somehow, aren't you?"

Castiel shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not."

Iris waved the matter away. "As long as the revenge is small-scale and doesn't have to do with anything that would get you into serious trouble, it's worth taking a shot at."

"Amber needs to know a taste of her own medicine," Ken added a little more confidently. "Maybe if I were braver, I'd do it myself."

Oyuun shook her head. "You guys must have more than just a bone to pick with her," she remarked, "or else you wouldn't be telling me to do this."

Jade's face turned sour. "She sabotaged the gardening club last year."

"And accused me of trying to go after Nathaniel," Iris added.

"She pushed me and stole my money," Ken wailed.

Castiel smirked. "She's Nathaniel's sister, and a big snob."

Oyuun looked frantically from person to person. "Guys, really?"

They all looked back at her with purpose in their eyes.

"You've got to hit her where it hurts," Iris began. "Amber's really into fashion. I suggest you buy the same clothes and copy her look for the entire day; that'd make her so embarrassed."

Jade shrugged. "I can't think of anything else to top that."

"In front of the boy she likes," Ken added.

Castiel waved their ideas away. "You guys are ridiculous. You think that'll teach her a lesson? No, Oyuun, you gotta graffiti her locker and put spiders in it. That'll get to her; she hates spiders."

_What a bunch of kids, _she inwardly complained. _Too bad the Abjiya isn't here, or she'd have given me better advice. _Castiel especially did not escape her judgement. "Castiel," she began, "I don't mean to sound bossy or rude but I really don't appreciate your advice. Look at the bomb it just set off."

Castiel's gray eyes looked at everyone else within the group, and he seemed to be remembering what everyone else said about Amber.

"I got in trouble with her in the first place because of you," Oyuun added softly.

"_What_?" Castiel's voice was dangerously loud. "I didn't do _anything_! Look, if you didn't want me here, you could have just said something instead of blame-"

"She was jealous because she wants to go out with you," Oyuun interrupted calmly. "And she thought that me joining the basketball club was so that I could be closer to you."

Ken spoke out first. "No! Oyuun, is that why you-"

Oyuun shot him a warning glance. "Of course it isn't!"

"And why would that make her jealous?" Castiel argued.

"Remember what you asked me about this morning?" Oyuun, leaning over to him, whispered. "She took those incidents and messed them up so badly, she made me look like some boy-crazy attention wh...er, popular wannabe. I'm betting that she and her diva friends are spreading the rumors around right now."

"That snob," Castiel cursed.

Oyuun settled back into her chair. "And that is why I will not take revenge. Understand?"

"Whatever, Butt-saikhan," Castiel muttered dejectedly.

"Well now," the shaman girl began again, "it's still study hall. Maybe we should be getting on to brainstorm ideas for that history project Mr. Faraize wants us to do?"

Jade relented. "Thanks for reminding us, Oyuun. Speaking of which, do you want to become a part of our project group, Castiel, since you're here?"

The redhead huffed. "I might as well. No one wanted to partner up with me anyway."

"That means we have five people," Iris remarked. "We're complete. Good, I was worrying that we wouldn't get our final member in time. I'll report that to Mr. Faraize tomorrow."

Ken gulped, for he still found Castiel intimidating. "U-um...I'll try not to get in anyone's way..."

Oyuun would have argued back against Castiel's joining, especially since it would spark some more ridiculous ideas within Amber's head...but it seemed too late already. And she was tired having to deal with all the drama; why upset Castiel and stir up some more?

"Don't worry, Ken, you're a valued member of our group," Oyuun comforted him. "Just like everyone else is. Your ideas will matter to us, not get in our way."

"Thanks, Oyuun," Ken said softly.

"How touching," Castiel teased. "Now can we please get on with this?"

Iris brought up a paper, and pointed to some of the words. "These are the events detailing some of Europe's stance in the Crusade...the Saracens at that time were..."

Her voice carried them on throughout the rest of study hall, and before they knew it all five of them were engrossed in the history project Mr. Faraize assigned to them.

* * *

It was the last class of the day, and Oyuun was out in the halls coming back from a bathroom break. She had just rounded the corner near her locker, which was close to the staircase, when she spotted Li with a can of spray paint graffitiing the entire range of lockers and some parts of the staircase. Oyuun only came into action when she saw that Li was moving over to _her_ locker.

"Hey!" Oyuun shouted. Li jolted, and she stood frozen until Oyuun ran up to her. "What do you think you're doing? Give me that!"

"Shove off, Butt-saikhan!" the Chinese girl spat. She swerved the spray paint away from Oyuun's grasp, and continued dodging her like so until the other caught hold of the can. But Li still had a grip on it, too, and would not relent. "Let go!"

"Taking my money wasn't enough?" Oyuun retorted.

"None of your business!"

"Hand over the can!"

"No, you let go!"

"I'm not crazy! I'll tell the Principal about this!"

"Haha, I'll frame you first!"

They were so busy in their fighting that they didn't notice the certain professional click-clack of heels on smooth floor, and the enraged old lady that coincidentally came at the wrong moment.

"Girls!" Shermansky yelled.

Li and Oyuun jumped at the same time, and they swiftly moved to stand apart from each other. The can of spray paint fell useless to the ground.

"What is going on here!?" the Principal practically roared. "I can't believe it! Defacing school property! You are going to be punished, the both of you!"

"But she was doing it, not me," Oyuun protested. "I came and happened to find her painting all over my locker!"

"What? She was doing it first, it wasn't me," Li argued. "She was angry at Amber for something today, so she tried to take revenge. Look at her locker, it's full of fake spiders, and everyone knows Amber hates spiders; what more proof could you want?"

Oyuun and the Principal turned their eyes toward a locker that hung open. It was full of black plastic spiders, true to Li's words. _She was planning on framing me in the first place, _Oyuun thought. _But this prank looks so much like Castiel's suggestion. He couldn't have told her if he thought she was a snob..._

Then she remembered. The only other person who could have told Amber, Li, and Charlotte, and not think that they were snobs.

_Capucine! Gods, she must have heard what we were saying in study hall!_

"As Amber's friend, I was trying to stop her," Li added.

Oyuun choked on her own anger. "Wha...It's so obvious that it was you! There's paint on your hands!"

"You sprayed it on me when I tried to take the can from you," Li retorted.

"I didn't!"

"Yeah-huh!"

"_Girls!_" Shermansky screamed again. "Enough arguing! It's quite clear who's to blame for this, and that can only be the two of you. You don't have any proof otherwise, do you?"

Both Li and Oyuun nodded begrudgingly.

"That makes it final. The both of you will stay after school for as long as it takes to clean up this mess!"


	5. The High School Ghost

The name says all.

And I'm sorry, so, so, sorry for being unable to update as soon as I could. Lots of stuff has been happening, as you can all well understand. I've also fixed Principal Lovejoy's name to Shermansky after I'd found out that _that_ was the Principal's real name, courtesy of ChiNoMiko and Puku. If you look back and see, I've fixed that error on all the other chapters too.

Well, enjoy reading, and please review!

* * *

**The High School Ghost  
**

* * *

"Here are the supplies," Nathaniel said as he handed each of the girls their own buckets, sponges, and cleaning solutions for their upcoming punishment. "If you need any more, they should be in the janitor's closet." Oyuun didn't have to look hard to be able to see the disappointment etched on his features, especially aimed at her. "I'll be going now, but if you should need anything I'll be in the student body council room when school ends."

When he was gone, Li grumbled and started soaking her sponge in her bucket of soapy water. "It's all because of you that I have to do this," she complained.

"Oh, and I wonder who was here first, messing up everyone's lockers?" Oyuun shot back.

"_You _were the one who was supposed to get in trouble for it," Li retorted, "but now look at me! I'm in trouble too!"

Oyuun had already begun scrubbing her own locker. "Crime never pays," she muttered under her breath. "And neither does framing people."

Li also started on cleaning up her mess as well, but not without cursing spitefully in Chinese. "Aiya!" she exclaimed after a while. "I got soap on my shirt!"

_Oh, bother, _Oyuun rolled her eyes. _This'll take forever._

And so began their punishment, which was difficult as well as endless. Oyuun didn't know what kind of spray paint Li used, but it had to take at least more than several hard scrubs to get it off, and even then, it still left spots. She was quite sure that the Principal wanted it _all _off, so a hard yet inevitable task lay ahead of them.

Eventually, both she and Li were scrubbing their hardest at all the graffiti spots. Time flew by unbeknownst to them, for when the bell rang signaling the end of school it caught them by surprise. Students poured out from the classrooms to their lockers, some to get ready to go home, others to prepare for their clubs. A few of the students who had lockers by the staircase were shocked to see the graffiti, but Oyuun and Li weren't going to explain anytime soon.

Amber was present, and she was upset to see Li cleaning up the mess as well.

"I knew something went wrong when you didn't come back to class," the blonde pouted. "Did Butt-saikhan tattle on you?"

"Obviously," Li said. "Or else she wouldn't be here. But I made sure that she went down with me too."

Amber let out a laugh, a horrible and wicked sound to Oyuun, and gave Li an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "See you later," she said, and shot a smug little sneer over at Oyuun.

_Jerks, _Oyuun grumbled.

Castiel came by next by coincidence, but his locker was nowhere near the staircase. He was only happening to go by, and his gray eyes caught Oyuun. They had also seen the endless graffiti all over the lockers and staircase. A smirk immediately formed upon his lips. "Hey!" he called out to her. "Scrub hard, and don't leave too late if you don't want to be stuck here all night."

Oyuun could hardly care for what he had to say at this moment. But before her head could turn back to her cleaning, she a thumbs-up from the red haired rebel. He seemed kind of happy too, now that she thought about it.

_Oh Gods! _she exclaimed mentally. _He thinks I actually took revenge...using his suggestion!_

"Just go now," she snapped. "You're not exactly encouraging anyone here."

"Whatever, Butt-saikhan," he shrugged, and left.

Then the crowd of students diminished to a trickle, until it seemed that only Oyuun and Li were left by the staircase.

* * *

Things grew dark pretty quickly. But the graffiti was still as present as ever. By this time, both girls were tired to their very bones. They had taken short breaks in between, but the paint still didn't seem ready to come off. Only fifty to fifty-five percent was taken care of, by Oyuun's estimation.

Li had had it. She threw her sponge down on the floor and started walking away. "I'm not dealing with this anymore," she complained. "I'm going home."

"But the principal said we had to clean it," Oyuun called after her.

"_You _clean it," Li snapped. "You can just tell Shermansky that I-"

She suddenly stopped. Oyuun froze, too. An ominous and otherworldly sound echoed throughout the hallway. It was like laughter, but not laughter...it seemed deep, metallic, and faraway at the same time. Footsteps, rather loud yet equally paced, followed suit and sounded as though they came from around the staircase. Both girls could tell that those footsteps didn't belong to them.

Almost immediately, Oyuun began sensing for otherworldly presences. She was naturally unafraid of ghosts or anything of that sort, considering what she was. But there was none to be felt.

"W-who is th-that?" Li stammered.

"I don't know," Oyuun murmured.

The Chinese girl gave in and backed up closer to Oyuun.

"Hello?" Oyuun called out, with Li at her back. "Is...Is someone there?"

There was a _clack, _as though someone turned on their heels, and the footsteps stopped for a moment. Then they started again, becoming louder and louder as they got closer and closer.

"It's coming this way," Li whispered, her hands grabbing onto Oyuun's arm.

Oyuun still couldn't feel anything spiritual. So this had to be a normal person, otherwise...

Like a scene in a horror movie, a dark shadow suddenly emerged from behind a corner. Their eyes were accustomed to the dark by this time, so Oyuun and Li could clearly see the shadow and its humanoid outline. Oyuun's eyes narrowed in scrutiny while Li's widened and her mouth opened to scream.

Oyuun noticed Li's open mouth and quickly shut a hand over it.

"Shh," she told the Chinese girl. "It's probably just somebody."

"What 'somebody' stays at school this late?" Li hissed as calmly as she could.

"Well..." Oyuun was searching for an explanation, but there didn't seem to be a good one just yet.

As she was thinking, the shadow moved a little; shifting its arm or something; and then there was a single, dull flash of light, as though reflected off something that used to be shiny. Oyuun abandoned her thoughts and focused on the flash. It would be hard to miss if one was not observant, so Oyuun had to look extra carefully. She noticed then that the shadow was holding something, and there was that dull flash again...

_A sharp blade..._

Oyuun jolted as she remembered her nightmare.

_The hidden ambush..._

_A stab, a slash...blood...  
_

_"Mother!"  
_

"Nngh!" Oyuun groaned and covered her eyes with both hands. When she uncovered them again, there was only one thought in her head. Looking at the shadow once more, she uttered so that only she and Li could hear, "A knife...it has a knife..."

"A knife!?" Li almost shrieked. "I'm not staying anymore!"

The Chinese girl's panicked footsteps echoed throughout the halls as she dashed and ran for the school exit. She had left Oyuun behind in her cowardice, but she could hardly care. Oyuun was not as panicked, but she _was_ scared. She was so convinced from that single dull flash that the shadow held a knife, that she backed away a few steps and contemplated fleeing herself.

The shadow noticed her then, probably because of her white hair, and moved slowly towards her.

_No! _she thought. Her heart beat faster and faster and the image of the bloody knife from her nightmare plagued her eyes. _I have to get away...before he kills me! _Without a thought, she turned around and ran in the same direction as Li. She didn't stop to think that maybe the shadow wasn't holding a knife, but her nightmare from the previous night kept on interfering.

While she ran, she thought she could hear something clatter to the ground, and someone's foot crushing something hard...but such sounds were practically nonexistent to her right now. All she could think of was escaping with her life.

When Oyuun came home, her parents were both worried and displeased. Apparently, they'd gotten a call from Principal Shermansky, so they had expected her to come home late. But they were worried still, both for her safety and her school record.

"What happened?" her father asked her about the graffiti-ed lockers as the three of them; Oyuun, her mother, her father; sat down in the living room to have a talk. "How did this come about?"

"It wasn't me," Oyuun responded. Her heart was still beating fast from all the running and all the fear. Her satchel was dumped unceremoniously on the couch beside her, and her backpack lay at her feet. "Some girls at school were being mean to me..."

Her parents exchanged looks with each other, as if saying, _Oh no, not again. _They knew of their daughter's social troubles at school, so it was no news to them, but it was troubling nonetheless.

"They just wanted to play a prank," Oyuun explained, "and blame it all on me. One of them was jealous because I happened to join the same club as her crush. But don't worry," she hurriedly added when the looks on her parents' faces grew grimmer, "I handled it. I can handle this, too, if I go back to the school tomorrow to continue cleaning."

"You didn't finish?" her mother asked.

Oyuun rubbed her arm nervously. "I didn't leave because I got tired of it..."

Her father nodded. "Oyuun is not a lazy girl. She's got good reason to come home now; never mind the graffiti. I'd rather she came home than stay behind to clean all night. We can contact the Principal tomorrow about returning to clean it."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," her mother pointed out. "Won't the school be closed?"

"Perhaps if we talk with the Principal," her father said.

Her mother nodded, approving of his plan. "All right, then. We can get this settled tomorrow...Oyuun, are you hungry?"

Oyuun's hand went to her stomach as it issued a starving growl. It was then she realized just how hungry she was. "Yes, _Eje..._a lot..."

Her mother smiled. "All right then, I'll scrape up something quick for all of us."

"You didn't eat yet?" Oyuun asked.

"We were so worried about you," her father put in. "How could we have eaten?"

Oyuun felt guilty to the core, even though she didn't do anything intentional to feel that way. "Let me help," she said, and rushed after her mother to assist her with the cooking.

* * *

The next morning found Oyuun walking alone to the High School after her parents sorted everything out with Shermansky. As it turned out, Li's family was also called to drag her back to the school along with Oyuun to finish their punishment. The school would be unlocked by Shermansky herself and when the two girls finished up, all they had to do was call her so she could lock it up again.

To be safe, Oyuun had brought along the Abjiya's talisman and vowed never to forget it again. She touched it for good luck before she tested the school's front doors. They were open, and she pulled them to allow herself entrance. Once inside, she saw Shermansky and Li who were waiting for her.

"There you are," Shermansky said, and she seemed a smidgeon cheerier than the other day. "Your supplies are still laid out like the way they were yesterday. Get to work now and you can get out early. Here is my phone number-" she handed them each a card "-and you are not to call it unless absolutely necessary."

"Yes, ma'am," Oyuun said, taking the card. Li stood silent.

"I will be going," Shermansky announced, "but I'll be back when you finish. Call me then!" The old woman gave a hearty wave to the two girls and then tottered off out of the building.

The moment she left, Li turned on her heels and said, "Listen, Butt-saikhan, I don't intend on doing all this hard work on the first day of a weekend."

"Well, that's typical."

Oyuun expected the Chinese girl to say something more, but surprisingly enough, that was all she said to her before the both of them took up their sponges and started scrubbing again. It was a little easier to do than last time, since they'd done a portion of the work already, but it was still tiring and after a few hours Oyuun began to feel her arms ache.

While Oyuun still scrubbed, Li gave in and threw down her sponge. "I'm going to the bathroom," she announced, and disappeared around the corner to go there.

_What a pansy, _Oyuun thought.

After Li left, Oyuun took her bucket and sponge to start scrubbing on the side of the staircase. She had just bent down to start on the bottommost streak of graffiti when her eyes spied something that her feet almost stepped on. She scooted away to see what they were and picked up a broken shard of plastic. The other object was a wasted cigarette butt, but she dared not touch it. Instead, she took a paper towel to cover her fingers and picked it up with that. When she stood up to take it to the trash, though, she stopped because her talisman was vibrating.

_What is it, Abjiya? _she asked.

_What are you holding, Oyuun? _the Abjiya demanded.

_Um...a cigarette butt..._

_Are you joking with me?  
_

Oyuun jolted. _What? No, Abjiya, I'm serious...'cigarette butt' means the end of a cigar, not, you know..._

_Oh. Well, you know how I am with these modern inventions.  
_

Oyuun didn't think that a cigarette could qualify as a modern 'invention', but she just went along with it anyway and continued to listen to the Abjiya.

_Anyways, _the age-old shaman continued, _what you're holding, Oyuun, has traces of a shulam on it. Take away that paper towel and you will feel it.  
_

Oyuun looked disgustedly over at the cigarette butt. She reluctantly did as the Abjiya told and held it within the center of her palm. Sure enough, there were spiritual traces on it, and those traces belonged to a _shulam. _Oyuun could feel it right in the middle of her hand...

"Ow!" she yelped, and dropped the suddenly smoking butt to the floor. She stomped on it once and then grabbed at it with the paper towel again. This time, she doused it in soapy water from the bucket and _then _threw it away.

_It burned me! _she told the Abjiya. _That shulam really doesn't like me. And it's not even here!_

_Hmm...this shulam seems to have met you before...otherwise, its essence wouldn't have reacted so negatively to you.  
_

_You think that maybe...?  
_

_Yes, probably.  
_

The shulam felt on the cigarette butt could easily be the one from the gymnasium, or maybe the one hiding within Castiel. It was difficult to explain why the gymnasium one would have been able to escape the gym even with a ward set around it, but that was not important for now. Because, as Oyuun remembered it clearly, the shadow she and Li had seen appeared from the corner where she discovered the butt and plastic shard.

"So whoever was here last night," she said aloud to the Abjiya, "was smoking and..." Then she remembered the crunching sound she heard as she was running away. A slight shade of crimson bloomed on her cheeks when she remembered her cowardly action; the dull flash may not have come from a knife at all, but something _plastic_; and thus she was able to deduce the origin of the plastic shard. _...and holding something plastic that he dropped and stepped on, _she finished within her mind.

_And he had the shulam with him, _the Abjiya supplied.

"Yes, that too."

Now that the mystery was solved, at least for now, Oyuun went back to her cleaning. "You think that maybe I should come back here another night?" Oyuun asked the Abjiya. "You know...to face the _shulam_?"

_Ooh...I don't know about that, Oyuun..._

"You'll be there with me."

_At this rate, I guess it would be fine; but if you're talking about an exorcism...no, it cannot be done right away._

"Why not?"

_The shulam's essence was found on that 'butt' we found. If it's from a cigarette, which people smoke from, it is easy to tell that the shulam was sticking around somebody physical and alive who was smoking the cigar. If you were to suddenly pop in with burning herbs to exorcise the demon while said person smoked, you wouldn't be greeted with a happy reception._

"Hmm." Oyuun considered that. "What if I just went to investigate, to make sure that the _shulam _comes out at night on a daily basis?"

The Abjiya was quiet for a while. Oyuun was worried that her idea was in the process of being rejected. But then the Abjiya spoke up again, and it was to her student's reassurance. _All right. But make that investigation quick...you don't know who it is that came here to smoke at night, after all._

Oyuun thanked the Abjiya profusely and went back to scrubbing again, her mind racing with plans already. She'd do it on Monday the night after school, and then whatever happened next would be up to both her and the Abjiya. Perhaps, just to be safe, she should sneak in her spirit helper bracelet.

But after she'd done some cleaning for a while, she began to wonder where Li was. It had been a some time since she'd gone to the bathroom, and Oyuun hadn't seen her since. She started to suspect something foul, so she stopped cleaning to go to the restroom and make sure Li was still there.

Sure enough, she was. Oyuun could see her feet from behind one of the stalls. But she didn't sound alone. She sounded like she was talking to someone. After a while of listening to her, Oyuun realized that she was talking on the phone. And by the familiarity of her tone, it didn't seem like she was calling the Principal. _Probably Amber or Charlotte, _she guessed.

_Should I stop her? _she wondered, because it did seem unfair that she had to work hard at cleaning while Li sat comfortably in a stall talking to her friends. But when she thought about the long-term consequences, such as more trouble between her and Amber's clique, she dismissed the thought almost immediately. After this graffiti fiasco, she'd had enough of drama to last her the entire year.

* * *

"Oyuun...is it true that you saw a ghost at school?"

"Oh my gosh, tell me about it! Was it scary?"

"Come on, people, everyone knows that ghosts aren't real."

Oyuun gave Kim a look from the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything. Of course she couldn't have known the truth; normal people couldn't see ghosts, and therefore, denied their existence. Other than psychics and people gifted with the Sight, no one else could. But with girls like Melody and Violette, such things could become a half-truth even if not taken seriously.

Violette, who'd asked the question first, did not look all that curious but Oyuun could tell that she was striving to hide her inquisitiveness behind a rational face. Melody, who'd responded with the second question, was much different and an obvious look of shock and intrigue was painted clearly on her face.

They all had, however, heard of the nightly adventure that she and Li experienced from Li herself, who'd been talking about it quite loudly to Amber and a few other students. It seemed that a weekend away from the school did not deter her in any way; the ghost was wielding a knife, radiating bloodlust and out to kill, she'd told them. And they were curious. They had come to Oyuun in the middle of Science, when the teacher declared a free-form study group time, though most students were just hanging out with each other and talking of other things than science.

"Tell us what you _really _saw," Kim prompted.

"Well," Oyuun began, "you're right, it wasn't a ghost. But it was somebody. I don't think he had a knife, though; that part was probably a figment of my imagination or something else. I had this nightmare some nights ago, see, and..."

"Yeah, yeah, your thoughts ran wild and blah. What about that sound you heard?"

Oyuun thought about it, wondering how to present it to them. She knew it wasn't spiritual, because she'd felt nothing behind it, but what rational explanation could there be? "Wind in the vents, maybe?"

"Oh," Melody said with a disappointed sigh, now that she heard Oyuun's more realistic recounting. She was more normally known as the studious and logical girl of the class, so Oyuun could hardly believe that she was let down by a ghost-story false alarm. Perhaps she occasionally enjoyed otherworldly thrills, was the excuse Oyuun gave her strange behavior.

"That still sounds dangerous, though," Violette said, looking a tad frightful. "Who lurks on school grounds at night but a shady character? You were lucky you made it out alive."

Kim practically chortled. "C'mon, Vi, not _everyone _who comes out at night is a serial killer. She probably saw some staff, the night watchman, maybe. This school does have a security office, doesn't it?"

Violette frowned, but shrugged in agreement. "I guess so..."

"I was hoping you'd have something to tell me," Melody said to Oyuun, emerging out of her own thoughts. "See, my birthday is coming up next month, and I'm striving for a Halloween theme for it, seeing as Halloween is in the same month. Li's account was quite wondrous, but I was wanting to hear it from a more reasonable person."

_Melody thinks I'm more reasonable than Li? _Oyuun felt quite flattered.

"So what did you need their story for?" Kim asked. "I know it's for the theme, but for what part? Decorations? A haunted house?"

"For the story-telling, of course," Melody quipped with a small grin. "It may be my birthday, but it's going to be a slumber-party birthday...Oh, did I just say that? It was supposed to be a secret until I sent invitations. Oh, well, consider yourselves lucky with the spoiler."

Oyuun blinked at how normal she made the concept of revealing a secret sound. "That's...wow, and it's next month?"

"Yes!" Melody gushed, and whispered the date in Oyuun's ear. "And guess what?" she said in a low voice when she withdrew from Oyuun's ear. "You're invited!"

Oyuun could scarcely believe what she was hearing at the moment. Her, invited, to a slumber party? She even almost forgot to breathe. No one had invited her for such a party, ever, in her life. It was embarrassing to admit, but Oyuun had never been to any sleepover outside of family before, not even in elementary school. To hear that she was invited to one now was...revolutionary.

"Why?" she asked, still star-struck, but she was questioning her good luck rather than Melody's choice.

Melody looked astonished. "Why not? I've invited most of the girls in our class. Well, except for Amber, of course."

Kim seemed amused. "What's wrong, new girl? Party-shy?"

"Er, no, but..." She twisted a lock of white hair absentmindedly. "I just...I just thought that since I'm new...I wouldn't have gotten that much attention..."

"You got a _lot _of attention this year, then, for a new girl," Kim teased and it was only after a few seconds of incomprehension that Oyuun realized she was referring to her run-ins with Amber.

"Oh, don't mention those," Oyuun groaned.

"It's not so bad," Violette reassured her, though she felt anything but.

Melody took pity on her as well. "Yes, don't worry, because there are people in this school who know enough about Amber to take her words with a grain of salt." She smoothed out a crease in her white skirt before saying, "Returning to the party...please continue to keep it a secret. I don't want people to know until I personally send out invitations. Especially Peggy."

"I will," Oyuun said. "But why not Peggy? In fact, who's Peggy?"

At the same time, Melody, Violette, and Kim looked at her as though she'd just told them the world was flat, not round.

"Peggy Martin is the head of the newspaper club," Kim said after a while. "She directs it but also goes out as a reporter to gather stuff for her stories. And let me tell you, that girl will make headlines out of _anything_. She's a real blabbermouth and trust me, you can never give her a secret without her publishing it on her paper or at least telling everybody in the whole darn school."

"Peggy will get the secret of the party out," Melody added. "And I don't want that to happen. So please, promise me you won't tell?"

"I promise," Oyuun said, and then the bell rang to signal the end of class.

Kim scooped up her books into her arms and pushed herself out of the desk, eager to leave just as the other students were. "Well, that's that, off to History. Bah, stupid history teacher, making us do all this work for the project..."

Melody giggled as she rose from her seat. "I think it's quite engaging."

Violette only blushed wordlessly as she prepared to leave while Oyuun gathered up her things and waved to the girls. "See you there, I just gotta get to the bathroom first."

"Kay, see ya," Kim returned.

"Don't be long!" Melody called after her.

Oyuun whirled around and left the classroom, feeling quite pleasant despite herself from her talk with the three of them. They seemed such good friends; even Kim, whose tomboyish personality made her look tough (in fact, Ken was no less afraid of her than he was of Castiel). And their talk back there had only been their first. Already and Oyuun was being invited to a slumber party, like a longtime friend...Her heart couldn't have felt warmer than it did now.

And then it grew chill as she turned around a corner and unexpectedly bumped her face into the chest of the one person she didn't expect to meet. Castiel.

"Oof!" she exclaimed, and almost fell backward, but Castiel had caught her before she could.

"You all right?" he asked her as he pulled her back straight. He seemed quite normal for a guy who'd just skipped a class; Oyuun knew this because she hadn't seen him anywhere in Science

Oyuun gave him an appraising glance with her golden eyes and then swiftly turned away. "Yes, I'm fine. Thanks for your help." She could hear the bland sarcasm in her tone, but didn't do anything to cover it up.

"What's wrong?" Castiel was following her. "What'd I do, Butt-saikhan?"

_You got me into trouble, that's what! _It was true; if it weren't for Castiel's grand idea, Capucine wouldn't have heard and then passed the word onto Amber, who told Li, who graffiti-ed the lockers and then gotten her into trouble. She also remembered Amber's jealousy and used that as an appropriate incentive to keep herself away. But she found the words stuck in her throat, unable to come loose. When she did open her mouth, it was to emit a weakly put, "Amber wants to go out with you..."

The redhead sneered, laughed, even. "So? Why does that make you angry with me?"

"I'm not angry," Oyuun protested, "but..." She stopped to look at him again, frowning as she studied his features. "Doesn't that make you feel anything?"

"What? Amber's crush on me?"

Oyuun nodded.

He smirked and folded his arms across his chest, looking all the world like the punk he was. "I don't feel anything, Butt-saikhan, and it isn't a surprise to me because I already know."

"Oh," Oyuun said. "Oh yeah, I told you on Friday." _Before I got into trouble. _"You didn't seem bothered by it then, either."

Castiel shook his head. "No, I already knew for a while."

"Did she make it that obvious?"

"What do you think?" he asked her, and from the look on his face Oyuun didn't have to think long. "Anyway, what's this ghost you and Li saw that I keep hearing about? Did you stay late at school? I told you not to, didn't I?" That last one had a lighthearted sarcastic edge to it has he reminded her of his previous joke. "Legend says a teacher fell and died there. Wouldn't be strange if you saw one."

"It wasn't a ghost," Oyuun insisted. "It was somebody. But the nerve; the next day I came back to continue, I found a cigar and some broken plastic where that person stood. Talk about littering." _I'd almost forgotten about that. Might as well tell him that a shulam was sensed on the cigar. Ha._

Castiel's face then took on a sudden pall, as if he himself had seen a ghost.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, confused.

"Huh?" He broke out of his trance. "Nothing...as if ghosts could smoke and eat plastic! Anyway, you're right, there are no ghosts. And that legend was made up."

"Well, I have to go to class now," she stated after scrutinizing him carefully, and turned away from him again. "See you there...if you're not going to skip, that is."

"Who says I'm skipping?" he declared, but he was soon put behind her as she left to go to the bathroom.

_It's strange, though, _she thought. _Why did Castiel look like that when I told him about the cigar and plastic? _The question bothered her even after she finished doing her business, and as she stalked the halls to reach her locker and history book. _Does he have something to do with it? _She paused as she opened her locker door, and her features hardened into a frown. _Maybe, but...It could have just been me..._

She still felt unsure as she held her history book and notebook in her arms and began closing up her locker, and reassured herself with the nightly investigation she was going to do that night. Whether or not Castiel was involved with the shadowy figure and the pieces of litter would be proven then. Her thoughts began racing about her plans, and she walked to class with no rush whatsoever to give herself time to think, to scheme and contemplate.

"Ah, Oyuun!" The student body president's cheery voice interrupted her thoughts.

Oyuun turned around and faced the blonde-haired boy who she was coming to know as a lousy authority figure. It might have just been her own opinion but the way he resolved Amber's bullying on Friday; and the way he dismissed Kentin's mistreatment; did not earn him a good impression in her eyes. Still, she answered in as politely a tone as possible. "Yes? What is it?"

Nathaniel had his trusty clipboard with him and two new pens sat in his left chest pocket. "Oyuun, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a moment of your time and ask you some questions."

She frowned, her golden eyes scrutinizing him as if searching for hidden weapons. "All right, but I'm going to be late for class."

"No worries, I will escort you personally and explain everything to the teacher."

_Well, I have nothing to lose. _She gave in and followed him as he paced back into the hall and chose an isolated spot by the water fountains. "So, what do you want to ask?"

"I've been hearing from Li and her friends that you two met with a 'ghost' last Friday during your cleaning," Nathaniel began. Oyuun did not miss the heavily skeptical emphasis on the word 'ghost'. "She went on about how he held a knife and was chasing the both of you, intent on killing you. Tell me, is this true?"

"Well...we did see a silhouette," Oyuun said. "But I believe that it was a person, and not a ghost. He was not holding a knife either, but something dull...kind of like..." _Plastic, _she finished for herself, but did not voice her opinion and had to be prodded by Nathaniel to continue. "I kind of let my imagination get the better of me then," she explained, "and that must be how the knife fiasco was started. And in the end, he didn't chase us; at least, I didn't see, because I'd been running too."

"Hmm." Nathaniel began writing something on his clipboard, stopped to look at it, scrawled some more, and then with approval of his work, looked back up at Oyuun. "Ok, well, that makes more sense. I only wanted to know so I could request the Principal to double the night guard if necessary. I was afraid that you two had run into someone unpleasant."

"Don't worry, we didn't. It might have been the night watchman," she added, parroting Kim's words.

"Mm-hmm," Nathaniel nodded as he wrote again. Then, slapping his pen against his clip board, he said with finality, "All right, you're free to go. Thank you for your answers."

"No problem."

"I'll walk you back to the classroom," he offered, and Oyuun could only accept it, if she wanted to give Mr. Faraize a reasonable excuse for coming late. _But gosh, _she thought, _so many people asking about the ghost...__and to think all it took was a little rumor._

* * *

Oyuun stalked through the empty hallway, golden eyes darting here and there on the lookout for people. Her white hair was loose, the bangs plastered to her face by sweat. She had gone through a rigorous basketball session that day in the club, to the end this time, and was more than ready to crash onto a comfy sofa and lay there immobile for a nap. But she had to stay awake, at least long enough for her to make it through to dark.

True to her word, she had brought the spirit helper bracelet for this excursion. It dangled upon her wrist with the owl feathers and fox and wolf fur resting comfortably against her skin. Her talisman was still about her neck, hastily put back on after the basketball session so she would not forget it again.

_Where should I go first? _she wondered. It was around six-thirty now, fully an hour after after school clubs had ended and everyone gone home. No night watchmen were about (yet) and the sky was steadily growing dark outside. But before Oyuun could head to the staircase, she wanted to make sure that she was truly alone. It just wouldn't do to be caught.

Her wanderings brought her along the main hallway now, near the entrance to the school. At that same moment, the lights to the school suddenly turned off, shrouding all in darkness. It bore no sound but the impact of it weighed upon her like the sudden slamming of a door; a final grim, dismal note.

_I am not afraid, _she reminded herself, and proceeded to summon her spirit helpers. "Bataar, Shria, Qara," she whispered. Three ghostly figures jumped out from the bracelet, each emerging from their respective skins and feathers.

"Where are we?" Shria asked, always curious.

"I hope this isn't something reckless," Qara muttered.

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted, flapping around until he settled on his master's shoulder. "What are we going to do, Oyuun?"

Oyuun's golden eyes glanced at the three of them, and then straight ahead down the hall. "I had this suspicion that a _shulam_ was coming here at night. I am here now to check it out, see if I was right. I brought you along to make sure that I'd be safe."

That pleased Qara somewhat, but only excited Shria further. "Oh boy, we're going to catch a _shulam_!" the little fox exclaimed.

"Not really," Oyuun explained, and she watched as the fox's trot slowed disappointingly. "Remember, I'm just going to confirm my suspicions. If they are true, I will return with a _toli_ mirror to see who is being possessed by it."

That stopped Shria in her tracks, and she turned two large brown eyes over to her shaman master. "Possessed? Someone here is possessed?"

"Or haunted..."

"Do you realize how dangerous that is, Oyuun?" the fox asked her again.

"Don't worry, Abjiya wasn't too stressed about it," Oyuun reassured her. "And besides, this is a low-level _shulam_."

"However," Qara warned, "if it happens to reside with someone harboring great hatred in their heart...it _can_ get dangerous."

She nodded, but if she chose to listen to his advice she did not show it. "Come on, let's go up ahead. I think I'll head over to the staircase now, where Abjiya last felt the _shulam's_ traces."

The talisman vibrated gently against her chest at this statement and, taking that to be a sign of assurance, Oyuun slowly progressed forward. Shria and Qara padded cautiously by her side while Bataar bobbed up and down to the movement of her body upon her shouler as she walked.

For a while, nothing but Oyuun's footsteps tapping quietly on the smooth floor could be heard. The spirit animals had no physical body, so while Oyuun could see and hear them speak, she could not hear them move. Then, almost suddenly, a noise came from straight ahead of them. Since the shaman girl's eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, she estimated the noise to be coming from what was normally the student council room.

_Did someone stay behind? _she wondered worriedly as she froze into place.

For some reason, though she should have fled or hid, Oyuun stood rooted to the spot while staring wide-eyed at the source of the noise. Part of it could be attributed to the fact that she had never snuck around places like this after dark, and that it gave her shame to to be doing so. Another could be due to some unknown feeling, fear maybe, that commanded her feet to stay stuck in place.

A door opened and shut. Some footwork as somebody moved and turned around...then, "Hello?" a familiar voice called out. "Is someone there?"

Oyuun almost gasped in surprise. That voice...it sounded very much like Nathaniel's!

"Hello?" he called out again. "I know you're there."

The shaman girl realized that it was her white hair, long and unbounded, that mostly gave her away. With a sigh, she moved forward until she could see the vague shape and outline of the student body president.

"It's me, Oyuun," she said.

Nathaniel was silent for a few moments, before answering. "O-Oyuun? What are you doing here this late?"

Oyuun frowned. "I came back to fetch my notes that I'd accidentally left in my locker. What are _you _doing this late?"

Nathaniel looked flustered, a rather suspicious sign to Oyuun. "Oh, uh...I'd forgotten some papers too, and was just going to get them. Excuse me, but I'll be going now." He turned to quickly walk away, but Oyuun's hand caught his shoulder first.

"Wait, Nathaniel, what's the rush for?" Her golden eyes looked at him with some mustered worry.

The boy glanced at her and then down the hall. "I have something I have to do that I can't be late for. If you'll excuse me..."

"Ok." Oyuun released him, and watched as he speed-walked away. _Geez, that was weird..._She made sure he was gone before tentatively making her way to the staircase again.

It was dark, as expected, and everything was shrouded in a sense of mystery along with the darkness. Qara sniffed along the stairs, while Shria actually bounded up them. Bataar next flapped over to the lockers, peering into each and every one of them, which was easy to do since he was a spirit with an astral body.

"I suppose you can help me that way," Oyuun said with shrug. She began to walk about the area, figuring she'd not be too suspicious here since this was where her locker was, after all. Her eyes then focused deeply on everything about her, searching the perimeters for any other spiritual traces than her spirit helpers. She also lay in wait of the talisman, for its movement or quivering could enlighten her on anything else strange.

_Vwoo..._and there it was, that strange metallic sound from before. There was none of the laughter, though, just the hollow and otherworldly echo. The spirit helpers had turned (although Shria was still on the second floor), but they too could not feel anything menacing, at least on their level. Oyuun couldn't either, and felt rather disappointed.

"But that sound was soon followed by footsteps," Oyuun insisted to them. "Someone came."

"Do you think, then, that we should wait until whoever it is comes out and finds us?" Qara challenged.

Bataar cocked his head from side to side, but said nothing. Shria, alerted by the noise, had come down from her exploring, and looked urgently at Oyuun and Qara.

"What'd I miss?" the little fox asked.

"Nothing you'd ever pay attention to," the wolf mocked. "But anyway, we should be leaving soon, if what you say is right, Oyuun..."

But Oyuun felt insistent. That this wasn't the right time to go...that they should stay, at least a few more seconds, until _something _happened. "I haven't sensed anything yet," was her excuse.

Qara paced about, growing restless. "Fine, but if nothing happens in the next five minutes or so, we are leaving."

_And that's for you to determine? _Oyuun thought as she crossed her arms. It was endearing how Qara could be quite commanding at times, even to his own master. But unfortunately, he'd forgotten that it was up to the master to decide whether or not she'd listen to his advice.

"...and then he was like..."

The sudden breach in silence, the little uttered phrase, though from undoubtedly far away or behind a wall, alerted the four at the staircase and sent Qara leaping in front of Oyuun.

"Do you hear that?" he hissed. "People have come! Go, now!"

"But the _shulam,_" Oyuun protested.

"I'd go if I were you, too!" Shria added.

The white haired girl's hesitance gifted them with the newer sounds of footsteps clicking on the smooth floor. "Hello?" someone called out. "Who's there?"

Then Oyuun felt it. A wave of menacing spiritual power, a hatred beyond anything she'd ever known..._the shulam!_

"That person," she whispered to her spirit helpers. "He has it!"

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted. "That's very nice, Oyuun, but we must go..._now_." He landed on her shoulder and pecked at her ear. Instead of a sharpened beak, all she felt was the astral chill of a spirit's touch. It was enough to alert her, though, and for the second time ran out of the school in the wild dark.

"Hey!" the voice yelled after her. "Wait!"

Of course, she didn't wait, and made her swift escape out of the building within no time.

When she had gathered her things, which were waiting for her in a bush near the school's entrance, she called her spirit helpers back into the bracelet and started making her way home. It had grown fully dark outside, but the street lights gave her surroundings the illumination that the school had failed to. Breathless and weary, she leaned her back against the wall to catch her rest.

_I finally have it, _she thought triumphantly. _It was there...definitely there...and I will take it!_

When that thought revitalized her, she pushed off the wall and started making her way home.

* * *

School the next morning was not as trivial as she thought it would be. In fact, if anything, it made the plans all the more exciting for Oyuun. She came through the door with a very happy expression on her face, and she shouldered her backpack knowing that everything she'd needed was stored inside. There was also one object, one very special item, that she'd been sure to pack; her toli mirror.

Round in shape and made of brass, it was decorated with an intricate mandala design on one side and completely flat on the other. Its blessed power would ward off evil demons, and if used wisely enough, could reflect the demon's visage and burn it entirely.

Woe to the _shulam, _then, who was the young shaman's target. And, as if it knew of its pending destruction and willed for the student body president to appear, Nathaniel unexpectedly hurried over towards Oyuun with a very heavy frown on his face.

_Oh gods, _she thought. _What'd I do now?_

"Oyuun," he called out to her. "I have something that I must speak with you about."

Oyuun frowned, but tried not to look too uncomfortable. "What is it?"

"You didn't go back to _investigate_, did you?"

Her golden eyes blinked, wondering how he could ever have known of her ambitions. "Investigate?" she echoed dumbly.

"Yes, to see if the ghost existed," Nathaniel said.

"Oh..." So it wasn't that. "Um, no. Why?"

His scrutinizing brown eyes narrowed on hers suspiciously. "I simply found it strange that you should hang around after the school so late."

Oyuun's face grew red with rising anger. "So you're saying that I lied to you yesterday?"

"No, not at all. I just want to make sure you don't get any ideas."

"What ideas?" she challenged him. "Let's be realistic here; ghosts do not exist! Only people like Li could ever believe in them." She inwardly winced at the irony in her own remark, but held fast to it to ensure that it was convincing. "I hope you remember how much I dislike trouble. Why would I go back, then, and stir up some more?"

Nathaniel was taken aback by her fiery speech, and drew back a little sheepishly. "Right...I suppose...I'm sorry. Have a good day."

"You too," she nearly spat out, but ground it slowly enough to make it sound polite. Then she whirled around and went on her way to the lockers, her face burning red with the fumes of her anger. _What's with him today? _she thought. _Just because he's student body president, doesn't mean he can go around making such wild accusations! He seemed even _more _suspicious than I did with the way he rushed to get out last night. God, why does he..._

"Hey Oyuun! What's up?"

Oyuun was stopped in her tracks by the feel of a hand on her shoulder. She jolted slightly and then turned around to see who it was. "Ken," she said, and sighed in relief. "Hi, Ken. Nothing, really."

"Did you get in trouble with Nathaniel?" he asked fearfully. "I saw him talking to you...none too happy, either..."

"Trouble? Oh, no, not at all," she reassured him. "He was just talking to me. Maybe he was a bit stressed or something; paperwork, you know? It's enough to drive anyone crazy. Or so my dad says."

Kentin chuckled, feeling better already. "Ok. Well, anyway, did you get all the stuff you needed about Saladin's biography?"

"Yeah," Oyuun nodded. He was talking about their history project. "I did. Do you want to review it with me?"

"I can help...but I still have to do my part with the Saracen's positions in the war, and stuff."

"I can review that over with you," Oyuun offered.

"Really?" Kentin's eyes lit up. "This is great! We'll both finish in no time."

Oyuun nodded. Of course they'd be able to finish in no time; after all, they would be using teamwork, wouldn't they?

"I can't wait to get it finished," Ken continued. "The Crusader War is a really complex subject...I stood up late finding everything for my part in it!"

"We have the internet for _something,_" she reminded him. "And by the way...isn't it ironic that Castiel got stuck working on King Richard the Lionheart?"

She and Ken shared a laugh at that. As they continued on talking about other things, such as the weather and some political debate, they came nearer and nearer to the lockers. Kentin seemed to have had everything he needed already; plus his lockers were in a different part of the hall; but despite that, he still stayed beside Oyuun as she went to get her things. The rumor about them being together had settled down ever since Friday of the last week, so not many people were sticking behind to make fun of them.

_At least that's a relief, _Oyuun thought as she watched the last few stragglers close their lockers and head to class.

"So, um, Oyuun," Kentin began when she closed hers. "I was wondering..."

"What is it, Ken?" Oyuun hugged her books tight against her body as she walked with him to homeroom.

"If we could..." He seemed a bit fidgety. "Um...don't take this the wrong way, I haven't gone back on my promise. It's just..."

Oyuun was beginning to dread what he was going to say next, but patiently awaited his words.

"...are you available after school?" he asked. "My dad is going back to the base where he works for a few days so I'm free to do whatever I want after I finish my homework. I just discovered a new cafe around the block from here and wanted to know if you'd go with me."

_After school? _Oyuun thought, her heart sinking. _I can't...I have to stay behind and catch the shulam...I guess I can just reschedule it with him... _"Actually," she said, much to his dismay, "I'm not going to be free after this. I have some stuff I gotta do at the basketball club, and then Mom needs me to do some extra stuff around the house. But," and Kentin's face lit up at this, "we can go tomorrow if you want."

"Ok!" Ken was more cheerful now. "That's great! Oh my gosh, I'm so excited! We haven't done something like this in forever!"

Oyuun chuckled. "Because of your dad, right? I guess it's tough, having a father in the army."

"Yeah, he expects too much from me," Ken agreed. Oyuun didn't have the heart to say that her father thought the same thing of him as well. "I'm lucky I didn't get stuck in military school," he added.

The shaman girl nodded. "Yes," she said as she stroked back a strand of hair behind her ear. "You are lucky."

They continued walking on for a while; their talk bordered on the small and trivial things, although it came to center around the _oboo _in the gardening club. It appeared that the shrine was receiving lots of offerings daily, and many of those offerings were disappearing mysteriously. Although there were a number of skeptics most of the members were delighted that something so coincidental was happening. To add to the excitement, the growth and overall health of the plants started to improve.

"That's so wonderful!" Oyuun found herself exclaiming. "I know it can be considered as coincidence, but, I just...wow!" She beamed at Kentin very brightly, much to his joy. Suddenly, though, he whipped out a hand to keep her from walking any farther. "What?" she asked, confounded.

"Shh!" Ken hissed, his index against his lips, indicating her to be quiet. He dragged her back behind the corner while looking out nervously, as if he were afraid of being discovered.

"What?" Oyuun asked again, a little worried.

It took a while before he would respond. "Castiel and Nathaniel are talking together," he whispered.

Oyuun's golden eyes widened. _Oh...Oh no! Not another fight? _"We have to stop them!" she entreated him. "Before things get worse! The last time they spoke with each other, they nearly-"

Ken shook his head. "It doesn't look like that," he said. "They look...peaceful."

Oyuun was silent for a few minutes, trying for the life of her to comprehend what that meant. "Wait a moment...peaceful? Castiel, and Nathaniel? Are peaceful? What do you mean? That can't be right! They're always at each other's throats!"

The bespectacled boy adjusted his glasses nervously. "Take a look, if you want to."

The shaman girl frowned and switched places with her friend, so that she was closest to the corner. Lo and behold, when she peeked her head beyond the wall enough to see the forthcoming hallway, there stood the two opposites; the deliquent and student body president; conversing with each other in low tones, their backs turned to their eavesdroppers. True to Ken's word, they seemed docile enough, conspiring, even!

"Oh my god," Oyuun breathed.

"I know, right?" Ken responded.

Silence fell between them before Oyuun drew back and began to think. "We can't be late for class," she concluded, "so we'll have to risk interrupting them. That's the only way to get to homeroom in time."

"It..." Ken grew thoughtful. "It should be fine...they aren't fighting, and Nathaniel will keep Castiel from acting out..."

Oyuun nodded. "Yes, Ken, let's go."

Having made up their minds, the two friends braced themselves for the oncoming confrontation and tentatively stepped out from behind their hiding space. They tried to play it cool, as though they had been walking up from the previous hallway and hadn't seen anything. But it didn't seem as though Castiel or Nathaniel cared about discovery at first, because it was only until Oyuun nearly rammed in between them that they broke apart.

"Oh, Castiel, Nathaniel!" she said, pretending to sound normal. "Sorry, I was walking too fast. I hope I didn't interrupt anything."

"M-me too," Ken stuttered when he saw Castiel's displeased face.

Nathaniel sighed. "It was nothing, really. Don't worry. Are you heading to class? We're the ones who should be sorry, then, for blocking your way."

Castiel simply grunted and looked away, not meeting either of their eyes.

"Oh, it's all fine," Oyuun reassured him with a smile. "See you later. Oh, and, Castiel; classroom's this way." Her finger pointed ahead of them.

"Does he have to come with us?" Ken whispered in her ear.

"It's ok, don't worry," she assured him.

"But he looks so grumpy..."

"I'm going to the bathroom," the redhead stated, and walked in the opposite direction.

Nathaniel replaced his pen in his breast pocket. "And I will be heading for my class. You two have a good day, now."

"Yes, thank you, Nathaniel," Oyuun waved. "You too."

"Yeah," Ken added.

When the two of them left and Oyuun and Ken were now alone to walk to homeroom together, Ken couldn't help but shiver. "I wish we didn't do that," he moaned.

"Why not? We had to get to class anyway."

"Yeah, but, the look in Castiel's eye..."

Oyuun sighed. "Don't let it get to you, Ken! It's nothing more than an instinctive mechanism in him. He's playing the tough guy, after all. I'm sure he didn't mean to harm either of us."

But Kentin didn't seem appeased. "I'm just lucky I was with you, Oyuun. Very lucky."

* * *

"Hey. Butt-saikhan."

Oyuun jolted and sputtered on the rushing water of the water fountain. She irritably released her hand on the button and wiped the excess water off her mouth. "What is it, Castiel? And don't you ever learn? My name is-"

"Cut the crap. I need to know something."

The white haired girl frowned at his tone. It was hardly polite or inviting, much less reassuring. She suddenly felt as though she was going to receive a scolding or something...but quickly shook that thought away. "Well, what do you need to know?"

"Are you trying to investigate about the school ghost?"

_What? This stuff again? _She found it slightly suspicious, but played along to get at his motive. "No...why would you think that?"

He shrugged. "Nathaniel said something about it today."

She winced at the memory. "Did he tell you that while you were talking together earlier?"

He looked as though he were slapped. "Hmph! Don't get me wrong, nothing happened because I wasn't looking to pick a fight, understand?"

She rolled her eyes. "Ok, I understand. But you got your answer now, so shouldn't you be going?"

His gray eyes stared passively at her for a moment, until it seemed as though they were having a staring contest. Then, with one last suspicious look at her, he shrugged. "Fine. So you weren't investigating; I hear you." With that, he turned to leave. "Just don't do it if you get the idea in your head, all right? It's dangerous for a girl to be alone in a school building at night."

"As if!" she called after him.

* * *

The day passed by quickly. It all advanced as she expected, but Oyuun had a bit of a workout with the basketball club and so was pretty much near passing out when she emerged from the locker room. Dajan noticed her fatigue and gave her a high-five on the way out of the gymnasium.

"You're doing better," he had said. "Keep up the good work, and you'll be a pro!"

Words of encouragement, she knew; after all, how could a person like her (who didn't like sports in the first place) end up a pro at basketball? But never mind, there were more important things to tend to. Like, the _shulam._

Oh, but something strange _did_ happen today at the basketball club. It wasn't a phenomenon of sorts but...peculiar altogether. If she weren't so occupied with her thoughts she might have forgotten that it ever happened in the first place.

It went a little something like this. Halfway into practice and the club games, where she was placed on an opposing team amongst the other guys, Castiel's breathing grew labored. It was dismissed as exhaustion at first and he attempted to cure it by drinking Gatorade. But then just as he was about to make a score, he began to cough wildly. It was as if he had asthma.

As expected, everyone rushed to his aid. Dajan told him to drink more liquids. He listened, but couldn't get the first sip past his throat without coughing again. Then when it subsided and was reduced to strengthless wheezing, he started to feel the beginnings of a headache.

"Go home, Castiel," Dajan said. "Maybe you've been thinking too hard on something...get some rest, and come back tomorrow safe n' sound, ok?"

The redhead wordlessly nodded and left for the locker rooms. A club member offered some Advil, but he tersely waved it away.

Well, to call it strange may have been an overstatement. It wasn't as if an ailing sports member was a thing that never happened. But Oyuun decided to keep it under the tabs of 'strange', so that if anything else happened; in the _shulam_ business, for example; then it would prove to be valuable information. Castiel had been perfectly fine the moment before, so it was all the more vital to remember what happened.

_Hmm, but I should save it for later_, Oyuun thought. _ Because if I remember correctly, the school lights are going to shut off at around...now.  
_

As if on cue, the lights shut off with a sudden conviction that would have chilled Oyuun to the core if she weren't determined to go through with her mission. She hugged the toli mirror tighter and walked forward.

"Bataar, Shria, Qara," she called to her bracelet.

The three familiar spirits emerged once more, with Shria stretching her sore astral muscles and Bataar flapping immediately up to his master's shoulder.

"Hoo!" the owl hooted. "Oyuun, back again?"

"Mm-hmm," she affirmed. "And I think I'll catch it today!"

Qara snorted. "That easily? I think we're aiming for too much here."

"But you know we all felt the _shulam_ last night," Oyuun insisted. "It's that close and...and I can't just let it slip!"

"We're right with you!" Shria chimed.

"Look, have you ever caught a _shulam_ before?" Qara asked. "No. Only petty spirits and demons. Just because you sensed it doesn't mean you can automatically get it in one fell swoop. Not even with a toli mirror," he remarked when his feral eyes noticed the brass mirror.

"I'll be faster than it," Oyuun promised. "And Abjiya has taught me a lot, so I'll channel enough energy required to burn it. No need to worry about anything."

"But if we're going to encounter people again," the wolf continued, "we will leave. Immediately. Is that understood?"

The shaman girl nodded exasperatedly. "Yes, yes, I know! Don't worry, I'm not a kid anymore. I can do this on my own. You'll see." She started speedwalking then, so determined was she. That unintentionally left Shria and Qara a little far behind, but the two canines continued pacing after her comfortably.

"She hasn't been this confident in a long time," Qara remarked. "It's normally always 'Wait, Shria, we should do this carefully' or 'Qara, don't be so rash'! This has really gotten to her head."

Shria nodded. "Maybe it's the promise of such a juicy catch! I mean, you don't meet many _shulam _in America."

Qara snorted. "If this were Mongolia, it wouldn't be considered as such. So I suppose you're right, for once."

The little fox waved her bushy tail and flicked it against Qara's nose. "Haven't I always been right?" she teased, and raced ahead.

The black wolf simply heaved a sigh and cantered after her.

Before long they were finally at that fated spot where the _shulam_ had been sensed. Oyuun had stopped before the staircase, while Qara and Shria had just caught up to her. Bataar fidgeted uneasily at his spot on the shaman girl's shoulder and twisted his head around, looking for important clues. Oyuun herself was holding out the toli mirror in both hands, her eyes scrutinizing every nook and cranny like an eagle searching for its prey.

"It's still too early," Qara said at last. "It didn't come out at this time, yet. We should wait."

Oyuun swept her golden eyes over the scene once more before conceding. She silently moved over to the first step of the staircase and settled herself down, the toli mirror still in her hands. Shria bounded up the stairs like she had done the night before and soon was lost somewhere on the second floor. Qara padded over to sit by Oyuun's feet while Bataar closed his eyes for a quick nap.

It seemed as though an eternity passed by as they sat waiting, listening, sensing for signs. When nothing continued to happen it was as if time was playing against them, purposefully mocking them and making them wait their butts off. Eventually Shria herself came back down stairs, and when she looked back and forth from spirit to spirit to shaman, she knew they were all exasperated when none of them answered her.

"Well this is frustrating," Oyuun mumbled.

The little fox licked her astral tongue against the girl's fingers. "Don't worry, Oyuun, I'm sure it'll come. It just seems longer 'cause...um...we were occupied yesterday, remember? You ran into the student body president, and then he was all nervous and stuff..."

Qara frowned. "Sure, but I don't recall it being this long. We left for the staircase immediately afterwards, and it took us less than five minutes to start hearing the noises."

"Hoo!" Bataar hooted. "Perhaps it left? Does it know of our presence?"

Oyuun sighed. "Oh gods...you might be right. I forgot, we were nearly discovered last night. If whoever it was has a brain, he most certainly wouldn't come again-"

_Clack, clack, clack..._

The sound alerted the four of them. It sounded very close...behind them, almost. Each of their ears registered the noises as footsteps. Oyuun's golden eyes looked from each of her spirit helpers, and she was rewarded with a nod in turn.

"Let's do this, then," she whispered.

She withdrew to the far side of the staircase until she was comfortably crouching there. The toli mirror was held steady, poised as if she were going to bash someone in the head with it.

The footsteps stopped, and then there was the sound of a match being lighted. Soon there was the choking smell of cigarette smoke.

_Almost..._

Whoever it was stepped forward until his silhouette was quite visible beside them. He seemed sturdier than the one she and Li had seen, though, taller and more muscular at the same time. _So there must have been two of them, _she thought. At that same moment, the familiar menacing presence was felt again. It seemed oblivious to them, though, like the owner of the silhouette was.

_Now!_

The three spirit helpers positioned themselves so that they could protect their master if anything happened. Oyuun, meanwhile, leapt out from her hiding spot and then faced the silhouette head-on. The demonic aura happened to be directly in line with the guy, after all. Before anyone could do anything, the toli mirror was raised with its flat side to the person's face.

"Behold, your reflection!" Oyuun spell-chanted in Mongolian.

There was a large flash and the sound of someone's scream as the light penetrated their eyes. A small backward tilt was all that was required to show the wielder of the mirror the visage of the demon captured; the face was a horribly charred black with a grotesque mouth sporting rotten or burnt teeth, the eyes a deep red, and a tattered _louz _and _deel _the only indication that this spirit was Mongolian. Since the light was still present, its features were as crystal clear as a reflection in water, and very much emphasized.

"Are you trying to blind me or what!?" the started person yelled out.

Oyuun nearly gasped when she heard that voice. But she was still startled enough to pause midway in the tormenting of the demon and accidentally drop the mirror. Its light was snuffed out as it fell with a _clang _to the smooth floor below. The after-effect made spots flash in Oyuun's eyes, as well as the owner of the silhouette.

It wasn't his speaking out that made her stop, per se. Rather, it was the familiarity of the voice. A very startling familiarity.

Because he was...


	6. And The Ghost Is

And this is where the cliffhanger ends.

This was a bit of an annoying chapter to do because of that bug that put random spaces in between the letters...and when it was solved, the document was still spaced like that so I had to go back and fix EVERYTHING! Not to mention, a few words got deleted in several places. Sniff...

Oh yeah, this chapter is a little short. I hope that's ok; it just seemed to be better this way. Quality over quantity, you get me?

As usual, though, I do hope you enjoy it.

* * *

**And The Ghost Is...  
**

* * *

_...Castiel!_

Oyuun's eyes, which were recovering from the intense light, managed to catch glimpses of the watery-eyed redhead as he shielded his own eyes while he collapsed. But for the meantime, she was so shocked and stunned that she could barely move, much less speak. Her hands eventually groped about until they found the toli mirror again, and even though her eyes were not yet adjusted to the dark she felt that she could still see the _shulam's_ face imprinted upon the flat side of the metal, glaring and contorting with pain and agony.

_So...so it's true...the shulam _is_ with Castiel!_

She sat on her knees holding the mirror so that the mandala was facing her as she continued to register what that meant. It shouldn't have been new, because she had suspected it from him...but suspecting and actually finding out were two totally different things. _Oh my god, _she thought again. _Why am I so surprised? Then again, why should I not be surprised? But then...Wait! I shouldn't have stopped!_

She quickly scrambled to her feet when she realized this. _Why am I so stupid? I should have continued to burn the shulam! Drat, if I can get him to hold still and face me again..._

"Oh god! What was _that_?"he practically yelled. His hands were still covering his eyes. "Damn, that wasn't a camera, wasn't it?"

Oyuun was speechless for a few more seconds. But at 'damn' she nearly lost it herself. "Watch what you're saying! It's just me...Oyuun."

Qara issued a low growl. "Wait a second...you stopped, just for _him_?"

She whirled around to face the wolf with an expression that meant 'not now'. Then she turned back to Castiel. She was a little confused with herself, too, but didn't have the heart to try it again. She also didn't think it was a good idea, not since she'd already been found out. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "You startled me. I thought you were someone else...or something..."

Thanks to her hesitance, the shulam began to slip and slip away until they could no longer sense it. Her guess, though, was that it was hiding itself within Castiel's heart. _If it hadn't come from there...it would have never been reflected on the toli mirror...not so coincidentally!_

"God..." Castiel still seemed to be suffering. After all, it had shone directly into his eyes. On the floor beside them, the smell of cigarette smoke began to waft up into their noses.

"You smo-" she was about to ask, but then changed the subject. "Er, you ok? I'm really sorry."

"Enough of this foolishness!" Qara interrupted. "We're going, now!"

She suddenly turned and glared at the black wolf. "Qara, would you be quiet? I'm trying to think here! This was my fault after all. No, don't worry, he wouldn't dare do anything. Trust me." When she still saw his apprehensive look, she had no choice but to call the three spirits back in. As she touched their corresponding furs and feather, they all sank back in as if they were nothing but mists. All that was seen by Castiel, however, was a little tap to the bracelet.

"Who are you talking to?" Castiel asked, despite his stinging eyes.

Oyuun blushed nervously. "N-no one..."

She didn't have to explain, thank goodness, when a third voice entered the scene. "Castiel?" it called out. A boy's voice. "What's happened? Why do I hear someone else?"

The figure finally approached. For a while, he was just a black silhouette. Oyuun nearly gasped when she remembered that it was his silhouette she and Li had first seen on the fateful Friday night. When he was closer, Oyuun could see a narrow face with chiseled features and a messy-neatish swath of silver-and-black-tipped hair to top it off. His eyes were what got to her the most; they were hetero chromiac, with one eye a pale green and the other sparkling gold; perhaps just as golden as her own.

And then when her eyes were adjusted enough to notice his clothes, she nearly jumped. It wasn't as if they were unfashionable, but rather, _old-fashioned_. Much like the Victorian man she'd seen in town. Yes, that was it; he was dressed Victorian, just like that man! Except with clothes that fit his look better and a green ruffle tie to match his left eye.

This strange boy was silent for a while, before kneeling down beside Castiel. "Are you all right? Can you stand?"

"Course I can," Castiel protested, and stood up on his own. He seemed a bit shaky, though, as if the light had affected more than just his eyes.

The boy stood up as well, and held his left elbow in his right hand while resting his chin upon his left knuckles, as if he were growing thoughtful. His bi-colored eyes flitted from Oyuun to Castiel, and back again. "I daresay that this has become quite an interesting night . Why don't we get it settled out, in the practice room, for privacy's sake?"

"Practice room?" Oyuun echoed dumbly. "Where's that?"

Castiel, whose eyes seemed to have become better adjusted (although not quite fully recovered) glanced over at the boy's briefly and Oyuun had the feeling that some sort of secret was being shared between the two. "Just behind the staircase," he finally said.

She gripped her toli mirror a little harder. "I...I didn't know there was a room there...Um...and I..."

The redhead shook his head. "It's not like we're going to kill you. Although I really might have to after I explain everything."

Oyuun's golden eyes grew wide. "No! You wouldn't!"

The silver haired boy let out an amused chuckle. "Don't be scared, he's just joking. Come, it won't be so bad." He released his thoughtful posture and gestured with a friendly hand for her to follow.

Oyuun only did so when she touched her talisman for comfort; it was on her neck the entire time; and even then she hugged the toli mirror to her chest as she walked. Now that her frustration at having let the demon get away subsided, it was replaced by a burning shame and maybe even a little fear. After all, she had unexpectedly run into Castiel in the school at night. What the heck was he doing here at this hour? And who was this strange Victorian boy? Why did the both of them know of a room behind the staircase?

They all came to a door that was tucked away neatly at the staircase' base. Oyuun had not noticed it before, not even when she was cleaning the graffiti. It must have been that well-hidden.

There was a light on inside it, although a little dim. When the Victorian boy opened the door, Oyuun could see that it was much more spacious than it looked from the outside. It was like a basement almost, and there were stools and some tables littered throughout. Most of them were in good condition, although a bit dusty. What caught Oyuun's attention , however, was a platform at the back of the room; much like a miniature stage; where there lay a red-and-black electric guitar hooked to an amplifier . A tall stool sat beside it with a mic in a stand, connected to another amplifier. A worn out notebook lay upon the surface of the stool .

The Victorian boy began to busy himself with pulling up some seats, so that the three of them could be comfortable. Castiel went in ahead and plopped onto one, his eyes still watery. Oyuun tentatively made her way forward and slid onto one of the prepared stools. The boy came with a bottle of water which he took a sip from.

"So," Oyuun began, laying her toli mirror on her lap. "Um...first of all, I'm sorry I did that to you, Castiel."

"Hm," he grunted.

She looked down and played with her fingers nervously. "I really didn't mean to intrude. I was, uh...coming back, because...well...I forgot something, and... "

An awkward silence fell upon them then. Oyuun could feel both boys' eyes on hers, even if Castiel's gaze was squinted and still watery. She gulped to herself and tried to look as normal and composed she could.

Castiel broke the silence first. "I guess it's not your fault. Who wouldn't be curious, if they kept coming back here after school and seeing and hearing some strange things?" He wiped at his eyes for a moment before pointing at the plate of brass in her lap. "What is that , by the way? Was it the thing that flash ed in my eyes?"

Oyuun jolted, and then held up the toli mirror. "Oh, this? Its, um, an antique. From my family. Um, around several thousand years old?" Truth be told, it used t o be the Abjiya's...and there was no telling how long ago the Abjiya lived. "It must have reflected on something," she continued, "because there's no way something like this can do that on it s own. Right?" She tried to smile. "I brought it with me because traditionally, it' s supposed to ward off evil spirits. I know I say I'm not superstitious, but with what 's been happening lately ..."

"Okay..." Castiel seemed as though he were trying not to dwell on that much further. "If you say so. Anyways, now that you're here; now that you know; you must swear that you will never tell anyone about us using this room."

"Especially Nathaniel," Oyuun added for him.

"Nah, he knows."

"Wh-what?" She sounded shocked.

"Yup," Castiel nodded. "Our friendly conversation that you and Ken ran into was about this. We'd noticed that you'd been coming to the school at late hours recently, so we had to decide if it wouldn't be better to let you in on it. It was either that or let you tattle to Shermansky. So do you promise not to tell?"

Oyuun slowly nodded. "I guess I won't."

He leaned in on her. "Promise?" he repeated.

"Y-yes, I promise!" Oyuun leaned away, suddenly afraid of the seriousness in his voice.

Castiel straightened back up and then nodded. "Good. And you'd better keep to that promise."

_Or you'll kill me? _Oyuun wondered, and it was not sarcastic at all.

"Castiel, you're scaring her," the Victorian boy chided.

"Relax, Lysander, I know what I'm doing." Castiel proceeded to speak again. "See, Oyuun, Lysander and I come to this room as often as we can after school to practice our music. You've already seen the place; it's big, it's spacious, like a basement and the acoustics are great . That's what you heard yesterday."

"And on Friday night," she reminded him. But before he could say anything else, she asked, "Isn't there a music club here for that, though? Wouldn't joining it be much better than hiding around here, when the school's closed?"

"We can't exactly play what we want there," Castiel explained. "The teachers think it's too crass and violent. They're more into flutes and pianos and violins...all that fancy stuff." His face turned sour at the mention of such instruments. "So we found this space, and voila; our neat little place to practice whatever the hell we want." His sour look was brightened with a mischievous little smile, as if he found a secret sort of thrill. "And at this hour, there's no one to complain."

"So how did Nathaniel get involved?" Oyuun asked again.

Castiel crossed his arms and relaxed him self on the stool. "I stole the keys," he said. "In fact, I stole a lotta keys, but just know that they were supposed to be under Nat's care. One of those keys opened the doors to this room. He knew I stole them, but since he couldn't get them back, he had no choice but to keep it quiet. You know why. If word gets out, we'd both get busted, not just the delinquent here."

"I see..." Oyuun looked down upon the mandala side of her brass mirror thoughtfully.

"Oh," Castiel said, suddenly remembering. "And this is Lysander." He swept a passive hand over at the silver haired boy. "Lysander, that's Oyuun. You remember her, don't you? That girl whose photo ID got messed up big time by Amber?"

"Yes of course," Lysander agreed with recognition. Oyuun had blushed and turned her head away, so that he couldn't see her reaction.

"Lysander goes to our school too, right?" Oyuun then asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yes, in fact, I do," Lysander responded . "I'm just in a different class, that's all, but same grade." He looked at her quizzically for a moment, and then said, "I'm afraid it was me who frightened and your friend last week. And who called after you the other evening," he added.

"Me and my friend?" Oyuun asked, and then remembered. "Oh, you mean Li. It's ok, no hard feelings...Li isn't my friend, though." A sudden thought came into her mind, and she fidgeted slightly as she started to ask about it. "Um, after that night, on Saturday, Li and I came back to clean the remaining graffiti. I saw some broken plastic and a cigarette butt where we saw you. What happened, exactly? "

Lysander looked at Castiel, and then responded. "I don't know how surprising this is going to come to you, but Castiel smokes from time to time."

"It's not like I'm addicted, all right?" the redhead suddenly defended himself, and Oyuun flinched at his harsh tone.

"Be still, Castiel, she hasn't criticize d you," Lysander chided again. Turning back to Oyuun, he continued, "The plastic merely came from a CD case I stepped on after dropping it. I believe I had seen you looking at me; pardon me, but your white hair stands out quite a bit he dark; and then you startled me when you ran away, leading me to drop the case out of my hands."

"I'm sorry," Oyuun found herself saying.

"It's quite all right," Lysander reassured her. "I am quite glad that I was able to get that off my chest; why, I felt rather guilty for making you flee like that. I'm no criminal, after all."

Oyuun looked around the room once more, not wanting to talk about that any longer, and taking every single corner in before saying, "Have you ever thought of performing big-time? Like, with an actual audience?"

The catlike, double colored eyes stared curiously into hers. "We have, once or twice," he said, "but nothing near the realm of celebrities." After a thoughtful pause, he suggested, "Would you care to listen to a song?"

Castiel jolted out of what seemed like a deep sleep, even though what he'd really been doing was staring off into space, and protested, "Heck no! Not after what happened. She doesn't look like a fan of rock, anyways."

Lysander nodded sadly. "I suppose you're right."

Oyuun suddenly felt awkward sitting with them. It was quite obvious, after all, that Castiel wasn't comfortable yet with the fact that she knew of their secret practice room. It soon felt as though she were committing a crime of some sort, and that she didn't belong there with them. Lysander, she was sure, was only being courteous but must have been irritated with her from the beginning. She had to leave.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I have to go now. It's..." She didn't have her watch with her, but a clock on the wall of the room indicated the time. "Midnight!?" she exclaimed in horror.

Lysander noticed her shock and looked at the clock himself. "Oh, that clock goes four hours late. It should really only be eight."

"That's still late, for me!" Oyuun panicked. "Oh gods, I totally forgot...my parents would kill me..." She hugged the toli mirror again and slid off the stool. "I'll leave now, and I promise not to tell anybody. Your secret is safe with me. I totally swear. Seriously, don't worry . Bye!" She headed for the door without another word and hastily pushed it open. Just as she was making her way down the hall, she nearly screamed when she felt a rough hand close over her wrist.

_Am I going to be killed? _she fearfully wondered as the hand pulled her backwards.

"Hold up, Butt-saikhan, don't be in such a rush."

She was breathless. "C-Castiel? What'd I do?"

"Nothing," he replied. "But I'll drive you home, since it's dark and you're so good at getting lost."

"But my house isn't far from here."

"This isn't a very good time for a girl to be walking home alone," he pointed out. "Who knows what psycho you'll run into in town? 'Sides, a car is faster than just walking. You'll get home sooner . Wouldn't that be better?"

Oyuun hugged the toli mirror defensively . "I...I guess so...but, but..."

"No buts. Come on."

"What about Lysander? How's he going to get home?"

"Oh, he can figure that out for himself. "

"Castiel! Isn't he your friend?"

The redhead rolled his grey eyes. "It's not like I'm going to abandon him! We still have some practice to do, anyways, so I'll be coming back here. Sheesh, you worry too much."

Oyuun turned away from him and frowned, but told him to wait. "I'm just going to go back for my backpack...I forgot that I left it in my locker this time. Please wait." When she came back, the mirror was safely tucked in the backpack and her things were an arm's reach away on her shoulder. "Ok," she said. "We...we can go. You promise me we'll be fast?"

"I can't speed on the road, if that's what you're talking about."

"No, I mean..." She gulped. "We'll only be going straight to my house. No stops. No detours. Right?"

"Of course," Castiel affirmed. "Now come on. Let's get going."

* * *

They were both silent even as Castiel turned the engine of his pickup truck on and began to back out of the parking lot. Oyuun was in the passenger seat, her backpack at her feet, and a sturdy seatbelt across her body. It felt very strange and awkward being in another person's car, especially one that belonged to a classmate. Oyuun didn't know why, but she felt as though she were further intruding on Castiel's world; first by discovering his practice room and then by getting into his car.

She had a feeling that he wouldn't do anything bad to her though; other than picking fights, skipping classes, and smoking, Castiel didn't seem capable of harming her. Or, he was capable, but didn't want to be at this moment. When they came into the town and he asked her to point out the way to her neighborhood, she knew he had no indecent thoughts in his he ad. He was really meaning to get her home.

_He's a good boy underneath, _the Abjiya's voice suddenly said to her.

"What?" Oyuun asked, and stared down at the talisman. "Abjiya, what did you just say...?"

Castiel looked over at her. "Huh?"

"Er, it's nothing." She slinked closer t o the window, a little embarrassed. After few moments of awkward silence, she began to ask, "So, Castiel...I heard that your parents have airline jobs? Do they ever know that you're often out this late?"

His face grew stiff. "As long as no one tells them anything, they won't really know. It's not like they're curious or anything."

"Meaning, they're gone most of the time? "

"Yeah."

Oyuun continued staring out the window. She wondered what he thought, then, about driving her home so that her parents wouldn't worry; did it irritate him that she had parents to worry about her? Did he ever wish his parents paid more attention to him, spent more time with him? Did he even care?

"What do your parents do?" he suddenly asked.

"Huh? Like, their jobs?"

"Well, duh."

She blew some fog on the window. "My father works at a company, the kind with office cubicles. My mom is a cook at a Vietnamese restaurant." After a moment of thought, she said, "When we moved, my father still kept to working at his old p lace, but my mom changed branches. If you want to know, it's that Que Huong restaurant on 16th St."

"Yeah, I know that place. Ate there before. They got some of the best pho around."

Oyuun gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of her eye. It was obvious that he was trying to avoid the topic of his parents as much as possible. Luckily for him, she wasn't the nosy type, but even so she couldn't shake off the indomitable feeling that part of the reason why the _shulam _stuck to him; why it had gotten around to haunting him; was because of his parents' neglect. _He must resent them for it, _she thought. _And that attracted an evil spirit. But who wouldn't, anyway?_

"Do you have any siblings?" she asked him next.

An amused smile tugged at his face, and Oyuun wondered whether she had done or said something funny. "What's this, some kind of bonding-discovery trip?"

Oyuun turned around and gave him a pouting look. "I was just asking...it's much less boring than keeping quiet."

Castiel chuckled. "Yeah, I guess so. No, I don't have any. I'm an only child. You think my parents could handle their jobs with more than just one child? Anyway , what about you?"

"I'm an only child too," Oyuun admitted. "Except I have five cousins who are like siblings to me." She smiled at the memory. "But we live too far away to visit each other frequently. We used to be able to, but then me and my parents moved, and you know. The oldest one, Khangai *, is leaving for college soon in this town I think, so I should be seeing him more often. I heard my mom talking to my aunt about letting him stay with us for a few of his college years." When she looked at Castiel and saw his distant face, as if he hadn't heard her, she wondered if she had hit too sensitive a spot in him with the topic of h er own family and decided to keep quiet for the rest of the car ride.

They started to come nearer to the neighborhood entrance now. Oyuun could see the evergreen trees that lined the path and the engraved sign reading _Amoris Falls _with gold-imitation brass forming the words. Castiel paused a moment at the STOP sign and then slowly slid into the neighborhood. Most houses had lights on at this moment, with the exception of a few families that had not yet come home. The houses here were of plain to good build , simple but homely, with two stories maximum (and maybe a basement). It wasn't overly luxurious or horrendously eye-soring, but somewhere in the middle. Oyuun could tell that Castiel was trying to get everything in and that he was curious about the place. She would be too if she were in his shoes.

"Turn left," she told him when they came to a crossroad.

He did so, and continued cruising the pickup truck at a steady pace.

"Did you know Nat's loaded?" he suddenly asked her.

"Huh?" She was confused.

"I meant, he's rich," Castiel explained. "He lives in some upstart fancy community with a big house named; yes, it has a name; 'Hawthorne Manor', or something like that."

"Oh...I didn't know that..." Oyuun also didn't know whether to be interested or not. _But it would explain Amber's snobby personality._

"Kind of explains his superiority, eh?" the redhead joked, and Oyuun was still confused.

What she was confused about, was what he was trying to imply. Was he trying to say Nathaniel attained the position of student body president unfairly; that his parents paid the school for it? That he was chosen because of his financial status and well-to-do upbringing? Or was he trying to explain away Nathaniel's general attitude towards other students (which was, Oyuun admitted, condescending at times but not in a flaunting manner)? Either way, it was obvious that he was trying to discredit Nathaniel in every aspect he could find.

"I don't know," Oyuun said. "It may seem like Nathaniel is bossy at times, but that's because it's his job. I'm sure anyone would have to, no matter what kind of background they come from. If you ask me, that kind of life explains Amber much more better than her brother."

"Hn, I see," was all Castiel said. He was clearly not pleased with her answer, but didn't seem too bothered by it.

They began to slowly turn onto the street that held her house. There were lit street lamps erected about the sidewalk, so it was easy enough for Oyuun to spot her house and the mailbox. She had even, with the surest confidence, told Castiel which one it was even before they even reached it.

"There," she said as he came to a stop. "It's that one. Thank you for driving me , Castiel."

"No problem," he said, and unlocked the doors for her to get out.

It was evident even from where they were in the car that Oyuun's parents had been just as she'd said; worried. She had been able to explain her absence the night before as some school event-thing that needed her only until late seven. But this time she had been gone way past eight, a little more than halfway. Her cell phone hadn't been answered, either (electronic signals often interfered with spiritual work, so Oyuun had turned it off while she was back there with Castiel and Lysander. Oops). So when Castiel's car pulled up by the sidewalk in front of the house, the door immediately flew open and revealed the panicked figures of her mother and father. Their appearances contradicted her earlier plan to silently close the car door and walk up to the house to ring the bell; by then, Castiel's car would have gone and no explanation about him would have been necessary.

Oyuun had frozen in place for a moment, finding herself surprised by her own parents' fast door-opening reflexes. But then she had to act just as fast, before they would begin having a nervous breakdown over who it was that drove her home. Castiel' s pickup truck did not exactly look like the cleanest and newest model on the road, after all, and could easily lead them to more suspicious thinking.

"What are you doing? Go," he prompted.

She sat there with her hand on the door handle. "Come with me," she suddenly said.

"I don't have the time," he protested.

She looked at him with purpose in her eyes. "Please, just come. Let my parents see you so that they're reassured I didn't jump into a stranger's car. I can explain things better with you there."

"This...this is crazy..."

Oyuun was desperate. "Please! I don't want to have to worry them further. Come on!"

Castiel looked as though he were ready to burst from...well, from what, Oyuun couldn't tell, but he looked like he was going to burst in general. "Fine," he finally said, "but I'm not going to stay for a bit or anything."

"Ok, ok."

Then he turned off the engine and the both of them slid out, causing a double-beat of car door slamming. Oyuun shouldered her backpack, so that it was steady upon her, and began to walk up the path with Castiel behind her. "Don't be shy," she entreated him when he hesitated . "Come on, they won't bite!" She had to do this several times before the both of them were finally face to face with her parents; her anxious, worried-sick parents.

"Oyuunchimeg!" her mother called out and hugged her fiercely. "I knew it was you! Where have you been?"

"And who is that fellow?" her father added.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she repeated over and over to soothe her mother's nerves. "_Eje, Aav, _I was back at school."

"That late?" her mother asked.

"Um...it was...uh, because of..." She panicked for a moment, but then gave a sigh. "Ok, I admit it; I got lost. The school is really big, and I was at an unfamiliar classroom to help out, and then I couldn't find my way back. When I did, though, it was already this late." She made it sound so that she was embarrassed. "Castiel, here...he was behind as well, so he offered to give me a ride home."

Castiel soon found all eyes on him. He jolted a moment before shyly mumbling, " Erm, yes..."

"You really have him to thank for getting me back so fast," she added with a smile. "There was no one else, and he even said I shouldn't walk alone at night. He may look a little tough, but he's really nice!" She quickly gave him a sidelong glance that meant 'be-still-and-just-let-me-speak'. "So don't worry, I ran into no trouble."

Her mother, obviously overjoyed, gave Castiel some brief thanks before ushering her daughter into the house. The father, meanwhile, stayed behind to scrutinize Castiel.

The redhead fidgeted slightly, and gave a polite little cough. "Uh, if you don't mind, Mr. Butt; I, I mean; Batsaikhan, I have to go home now."

"Hmm," Oyuun's father nodded, and startled the boy by patting his shoulder with a firm hand. "You go do that. Thank you, by the way, for bringing Oyuun back safe and sound."

"It was nothing," Castiel said. When her father's hand released him, he muttered a 'good evening' before turning back down the path to reach his car.

* * *

"Tell me the truth...are you _liking-liking _some boys at school already? Is that Castiel your...?"

"_Eje!_" Oyuun exclaimed, her face growing beet red. "N-no, it's not like that! He, he, we, I mean, we barely even talk! He just happened to be there when no one else was, I swear! There's nothing like that between us!" Another pause, and, "I don't like any boys in school that way either."

Her mother didn't look totally convinced . "Are you sure?"

"O-of course!"

They both heard her father closing the front door, and his footsteps as he made his way to join them in the living room. It was situated quite farther in the house, so Castiel (thankfully) could not h ave heard anything of what her mother said. Besides, they were speaking in Mongolian.

"That's taken care of," her father remarked. "What were you two talking about, by the way, that's made Oyuun turn such a vermillion scarlet?"

The shaman girl couldn't take any more of her parents' teasing and hid her face in a sofa cushion. "Please, _Aav, _not you too..."

"But dear, hasn't it crossed your mind?" her mother asked her father. "Oyuun is fifteen already. It's at this age that a lot of American girls start dating and bringing home their boyfriends. And of course, back home in Mongolia; at least in the nomadic parts; we'd be scrambling for a husband for her, or in the least a potential match. If anything, I believe we must have a talk, so she can get her feelings sorted out and advance in this without any awkwardness or unsurety ."

Her father frowned, his great brows furrowing, but sat down anyway and looked contemplative. "You are right, in a way."

"_Aav!_" Oyuun was still embarrassed.

"It's a very sensitive topic right now, I know that," her mother continued. "I was the same when I was your age. But trust me, _okhin, _you will feel much better when you talk it all out."

The shaman girl was still hugging the cushion and hiding her reddening face. "Can I just say, again, that there's nothing between me and Castiel?" She decided not to tell them that he was the crush of the mean girl who'd gotten her into trouble last week. "We're not even friends...and, you know, he's not my type! " She sprang back up, exposing her face, but still hugging the cushion. "Y-yeah, I mean, who'd go for someone so...so...uh...punkish? Did you know he's in a rock band ? We all can't stand that kind of music, for sure! _Aav, _you said so yourself that rock is nothing more than rough screaming and instrument playing, right? If anything, I should be aiming for a more proper looking guy , with less noisy tastes. And hobbies."

Her parents stared at her for a while, before her father spoke up. "Tell us the truth, Oyuunchimeg. Is there any boy like that at your school that follows your aforementioned standards?"

Oyuun couldn't believe where this conversation was turning. "No, not at all! Please, don't worry, there's nothing like t hat at all."

"If you are sure," her mother relented. "But-" And Oyuun cringed at this 'but'. "-if there does happen to be one, and you are confused about anything, please don't hesitate to tell us. We are your parents, and we will help."

"Don't let anyone take advantage of you, " her father added.

"I, I know! Don't worry!"

"And be sure he truly cares for you," her mother quipped.

"Aaagh," Oyuun moaned as she fell back on the couch in pure embarrassment. "Please, I know that already! Can we stop talking about it? In fact, I'm more than a little hungry right now. Let's have dinner."

There was silence for a moment before her mother rose and nodded. "All right. Go put your stuff away and prepare yourself. Dinner will be ready soon."

Her father rose as well, and then she was last, collecting her backpack from the floor.

* * *

They had dinner that night at nine and stayed up watching a movie in order to digest their food. Sleeping with a full stomach is not the best sensation, after all.

It was a little hard for Oyuun, in particular, to grow sleepy enough for bedtime. She was thinking of what to do now that she knew Castiel was haunted. Should she pursue it? Was the _shulam _really doing any damage? One thing was for sure, if she talked to the Abjiya the older shaman would tell her to steer clear of the boy. Trying to exorcise a spirit that was haunting somebody meant spending some very close time with them, and that was not something Oyuun wanted to do at the moment.

_Now that it knows that I know, _she thought, _things might start getting a little tougher. I might expect some threatening occurrences once or twice...I suppose I should try to remove it, for the sake of the school. Who knows when it'll start attracting more?_

"Oyuun?" her mother asked, jolting her out of her thoughts. "What are you thinking of? Why have you suddenly gotten so grim?"

"Huh?" Oyuun straightened up. "O-oh, nothing, _Eje. _I was just thinking of tomorrow's homework, that's all."

"Ok. Is it that Middle Ages project your teacher's put you on?"

"Yes, _Eje. _It's a little complicated, but most of it is smooth sailing, since everyone in our group is eager to pitch in."

"When is it due?" her father asked.

"I think around a few more weeks or so," Oyuun calculated. "Mr. Faraize said he wouldn't give an exact date yet because he wants to see everyone's progress first before he decides. We're all still going hard at it though, not to worry."

"Would you want me to take you to the library after school tomorrow for any further research?" he offered.

_After school...oh yeah, Ken wanted to take me to that cafe! I could go with him tomorrow. Maybe he can come with me to the library? _But at that, she frowned. _No, Aav wouldn't like it. He doesn't approve of Ken in the first place. Oh, but who said that _he _would have to_ _take me? I can go with Ken just as fine. _"It's ok," she politely refused. "There's not much more to be done, although if we do need it I believe Mr. Faraize said that there was a library in the school we could use. We just have to ask the student body president to unlock it for us."_Well, if Castiel hadn't stolen the keys yet!_

Her father nodded and took a sip from his mug of tea. "Just do your best, ok? Don't slack, but don't push too hard."

"I know, _Aav, _don't worry."

"I just hope you're ok going to sleep at such an hour," her mother remarked with a worried look at the clock. "Will you be able to wake up when I call for you?"

"I should be. I woke up at five once! And you both know I'm not a heavy sleeper."

"If you say so," her mother said.

The movie had just gotten into an exciting part where the hero was coming to face off with the villains who had kidnapped his sister. Oyuun soon found herself lost in watching it and didn't think anything else about the school or the _shulam_ until, perhaps, she went to sleep.

* * *

_"Why do you want to kill me?"_

_Why indeed?_

_"Why do you think, that just because you're in a special position...you can do with me as you please?"_

_Why indeed?_

_"Answer me!"_

_How?_

_A bright light. Bright and shining, so powerful that it dwarfed the darkness and the two fiery red globes that stood for eyes._

_"Leave her be," a commanding voice ordered. It was strong and smooth and serene. A brave woman's voice. "She is protected by forces such as me. Something the likes of you cannot reach her in her sleep, unless she were summoned into the Dream World. Save your confrontation for then...she cannot answer you now."  
_

_"Why have you come!?" the first voice argued. "Why did you have to come!? Things were fine before you were here..."_

_"That's none of your business. Leave, now."_

_"Not without leaving behind a present."_

_And then something touched her forehead._

_"Remember me," a slithery voice whispered as the scene changed. Tribal yurts were visible everywhere against the burning evening sky, and mounted and running men went back and forth, screaming and slashing at each other. Women ran and children cried. A mother was killed._

* * *

**Footnotes**

*_Oldest cousin...__Khangai..._Khangai is the name of a mountain range in Mongolia, but can be used as a boy's name. He is also the white shaman mentioned in the first chapter and (hint, hint) will be playing a larger role in this fanfic in the near future.


End file.
